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Extracted from Malaysiakini
Penan power and a press conference that
wasn't
Sim Kwang Yang
Sep 18, 10 |
COMMENT Trouble was brewing in 1990 in the jungle of Sebatu
near Long Ajeng, Ulu Baram
in
Eventually, the state police decided to take action. They sent in
300 members of the much-feared Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) and tore down the
blockade by force, while arresting the people on site.
The protesting Penans were taken utterly by
surprise and they were shocked by the sudden show of violence on the part of
the FRU.
They ran helter skelter through the jungle in great
confusion. In the pandemonium that followed, a four-year-old Penan boy was
overcome by one of the tear-gas bombs hurled into the midst of the Penans and he later died from the effects from the gas.
With the FRU and police personnel occupying their Long Ajeng
settlement, many families left Long Ajeng to take
refuge in other Penan settlements. It was on one of these desperate journeys
that a 12-year-old Penan girl was raped by a uniformed intruder, according to
Penan villagers.
When
some NGO members from abroad brought these crimes to my attention in 1993, I
decided to take the matter to the law. I sent my personal aide,
Chee How reported to me the violent actions of the FRU, together with details
of the death of the young boy and the rape of the 12-year-old girl.
But my attempts to report the matter to the police failed, because the
police in Miri were lukewarm in their response and did not treat the report
seriously. That was when I decided to lodge a police report in Bandar Kuching
central police station.
It was a logistic nightmare, but finally we overcame all kinds of difficulties
in communications and transport. A group of 20 Penan village chiefs
representing 15 Penan villages finally arrived in Kuching city.
Close knit community
The next morning, I took these village chiefs (tuai rumah) to
the central police station in Kuching. A police inspector had been contacted
and was waiting for us, and he was the very picture of hospitality and
courtesy.
The visitors were offered hot drinks and cakes, and invited to sit down at a
big table. After we sat down and exchanged pleasantries, a police officer was
assigned to record the villagers' statements. The action of the police, in this
instance, was exemplary.
In the afternoon, the Penan chiefs called for a press conference. They trooped
into my small office at
That was when I noticed something unique as we entered my office; the Penans always walk in single file, there in my office in
the city, and anywhere they go in the jungle. They keep together and depend on
one another.
That was my first time meeting the Penan villagers face to face. Much as I had
heard of their shyness, they were articulate and outspoken in voicing their
long-standing problems with the authorities, in their jungle home. They were a
gentle people and slightly shorter in stature than town folk.
I could not detect a single fat person among them. They were all fit, their
bodies hard as nails, thanks to the long years of living in the wild and
depending only on their personal resources for survival. I was told that the
nomadic Penans' most prized possessions are their
loyal hunting dogs, on which their existence depended.
I
was taken aback by another unique practice of the Penans.
In their communal traditions, they share everything in their lives together.
They do not have a concept of a spokesperson.
Every time a question was raised by the reporters, the question would go
through the ring of Penans one by one, with murmured
consultations, until finally one answer emerged at the end of the discussion.
The press conference took a great deal of time for this, but I was very
impressed by the democratic practice of their communal living.
There was some degree of excitement among the reporters at the end of the press
conference; some were busy taking pictures, while a film crew recorded the
proceedings.
Muted press
The next day when the newspapers were delivered to my
office, not a single picture of the Penans appeared
in the press. That was how it was in those days: any news of the Penans was systematically blacked out.
Fortunately, the news of the Penans' visit to Kuching
was leaked out to the international press. That was the time when reports about
the Penans had become big news with the international
media, shortly after the Earth Summit in
During their visit to Kuching, the delegation of Penans
also took the opportunity to lobby their cause with the government.
They sent a delegation of representatives to visit the chief minister's
office; they also met with officers from the education and medical departments
and a representative from the State Cabinet Committee on Penan Affairs, under
the aegis of Minister Abang Johari
Abang Openg.
A day or two later, they returned to their villages. All in all, despite
efforts to suppress the news of their suffering, it had been a successful trip
for the Penans.
This was how one of the most highly publicised
actions taken by the Baram Penans came about.
Unfortunately, in 1995, I fell ill and had to retire from active politics. But
thanks to the Internet, the struggle of the Penans
has never lost steam and has gained more momentum in the last two 
decades.
Meanwhile,
Next week, I shall reproduce in full the 1993 police reports lodged on the deaths of the four-year-old Penan boy and a Penan man at the blockades, and the rape of the 12-year-old Penan girl.
Part 1: A flower
for the Penan
Part 2: A distant cry
for help from the jungle
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