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Extracted from Malaysiakini
It's not easy being a Penan
K Kabilan | Nov 23,
Long Lamam is a Penan village located in
the remote interior of Ulu Baram in
This river is also the main link from this village to the outside world. A
60-minute upstream boat ride takes the villagers to a timber track road. From
there, the nearest town is a place called Long San, some two hours away. Miri
is another four hours away from Long San.
Long San is the place where the Penan children go to school. It is also the
nearest place with a doctor, the police or any government agencies.
There are
some 200 people in this village, with approximately 55 households (pintu).
The village head is Balang Tui,
a small sized man with a soft voice and a ready smile.
A small field stands between the village head's house and the river and from
his house Balang can see anyone who comes to Long Lamam through Sungai Selaan.
There are other houses nearby but most of the villagers live on higher ground
located about 200 metres behind Balang's house. There
is also a small church at the higher ground.
Long Lamam is located in a valley surrounded by thick
jungle, making it easy for the villagers to go hunting with their blowpipes and
to collect wild jungle fruits and jungle products. Some of them have cleared
the jungle for farming purposes.
There is no electricity in this village but a generator provides power to Balang's house, the village pastor's house and the church.
Even latrines are a new discovery for them, courtesy of some NGO friends. Water
is sourced from the river.
On the surface, life seems to be peaceful and pleasant for these villagers but
in reality there are many deep-rooted problems that threaten to destroy their
very existence.
"This
jungle is our world but the development which is taking root here now is slowly
pushing us into a corner," Balang (left) told Malaysiakini during a visit to
his village in early November.
Long Lamam, as with many other Penan villages in the Ulu Baram area, is slowly being squeezed out of its life by
rampant logging and the emergence of oil palm plantations. The entire jungle,
which has been the home of the Penans, has been given
away by the state government to logging giants.
Also, almost 80 percent of the 16,000 Penan population in Sarawak are also
facing problems in many areas which most Malaysians take for granted -
education, health, security and being recognised as citizens.
These can be
attributed to the fact that the Penans are the
smallest and the most isolated of tribes in
"It's
not true that we don't want development but we feel it should not come at the
expense of our lifestyle and our trees. For us, these trees are the symbol of
our development," pointed out Balang who is in
his early 50s.
All will be gone soon
Balang and his villagers are dreading the day when
the sound of chainsaws get closer and closer to their
village. It is bound to happen as logging is already taking place in the jungle
located about two hours away. One other Penan village - Long Ajeng - is now standing between the loggers and Long Lamam.
"It will be a sad day when we are forced to move out from our land by the
big logging companies. If we can, we want to talk with them about not
destroying our jungle," he said.
At the moment, while open logging has not started near Long Lamam, logging companies
have started encroaching into their area to cut down certain species of trees.
Although by nature the Penans are a group of people
who dislike confrontation, Balang said that if left
with no choice, they will be forced to take on the might of the logging
companies.
"If they are agreeable to negotiations, we will listen and we want them to
listen to our demands but if they insist of trampling on us, then we will do
our best to stop them," he said, with a certain
vigour in his voice. The villagers who had gathered around him during the
interview murmured their approval.
This will not be the first time for Balang and other
senior villagers to be crossing paths with the logging companies.
In June 1991, more
than 300 Penans from Long Ajeng
and other villages mounted a blockade near the village to stop logging
activities. The blockade continued till early 1992 despite aggressive response
from the logging companies and it was finally called off after the intervention
of fully armed riot police.
And then in March 1993, once again the Penans mounted
another blockade at Long Mobui, located on the upper Selaan river, about an hour away
by boat from Long Lamam.
This protest continued for about six months and once again, the police and
soldiers got involved in dismantling the blockades, and in the process volleys
of tear gas were fired at the Penans.
During this six-month
period, nine Penans, including six children, had died
due to sickness and hunger.
The Long Lamam and Long Mobui
Penans are originally from Long Ajeng
- they moved out after the 1991 blockade. With the memory of the skirmishes
still fresh in his mind, Balang said his villagers
will once again stand up against the logging companies bent on wiping out their
homes.
However, deep down he seems to admit that it will be a losing
battle for the Penans against the might of the
logging companies.
"They will continue logging and we have little choice but to accept it.
All we want is for our land to be preserved... for us to live and hunt,"
he said.
Going a long way for education
The Penans are waging a battle on two fronts
simultaneously. On one hand, they are trying to protect their jungle from being
destroyed while on the other they are trying their best to get the authorities
to provide them with the most basic necessities of life.
Balang said that there were major issues which the Penans faced in terms of educating their children and
having access to medical care.
"Our children have to travel all the way to Long San and Long Mo to attend
schools. We also have to go to Long San if we need a doctor," he said.
Both Long San and Long Mo are three and four hours away respectively from Long Lamam.
He said that the children have to stay in school hostels due to the distance
and this worried him and others in the village.
"We don't know what's happening to them there. Sometimes they are bullied,
some join the wrong people. We just can't afford to send them to school from
our village daily."
It is not just the distance but also the cost of getting there, and this is
where their poverty blights them.
Every trip out of the village to Long San will cost a person about RM100 to
RM150 and that is simply too expensive for them.
As for the
children, although they are entitled to some grants from the schools or the
state, in actual fact, they hardly see any money.
"We are asked to pay for so many things in school that the grants given
are not enough," added Balang.
There is also fear for the safety of these children when they return home
during the weekends or holidays. It is not uncommon for some of the Penan girls
to be 'hijacked' and sexually exploited by strangers along the timber route.
"Thus far none of girls from this village have been raped or attacked
(sexually) by these people but there is always a fear when our girls travel
alone to return home from school," said the head man.
The distance and the poverty have also resulted in some of the children
dropping out from school, but not before picking up some habits from the
outside world as in wearing football jerseys of Italian and Spanish clubs or
having their hair coloured.
Doctor, doctor where are you?
The distance is also hampering the villagers from getting better healthcare. In
fact, almost all the villagers at Long Lamam have bad
teeth.
At the moment, several volunteer doctors visit these villagers but there is a
limit to how often and what form of treatment they can provide during a two-day
camp visit.
Balang said that the most common health issues were
tooth-related, scabies and gastric. This stems from their poor living standard
as well as their poverty.
Toddlers in the village also show signs of malnourishment - tooth decay, poor
growth, being underweight, have dry and scaly skin and bloated stomachs.
The village chief said that it was getting impossible to hunt animals and pick
jungle fruits as a result of logging activities in the Ulu
Baram area.
Sometime families go roaming in the jungle for weeks to hunt for
food, only to come back with almost nothing. As a result the villagers get by
with the little that they can get from farming and their hunts.
Once again, abject poverty keeps these villagers from being able to purchase
basic food essentials that they need.
As poverty stricken citizens of the country, they are entitled to claim
benefits from the government but that opportunity too, is lost on them because
most of them have no national identity cards to prove their citizenship.
"Almost half the villagers here have no MyKad.
It's not that we have not applied but our applications are all still pending.
When we ask the National Registration Department, we are told to apply again.
Some of the villagers here have been waiting for more than five years," he
said.
Here's our wish list
Without national identity cards, the villagers not only face difficulties in
applying for government aide, but also in seeking treatment from a government
doctor or even registering their children at schools.
"Every time we go out to Long San or Lio Mato to apply for our MyKad, we
will have to spend money to go over there and on top of that we are asked to
pay fines or to pay afresh for new applications," he lamented.
At the end of the
interview, Malaysiakini
asked Balang what he wanted from the government for
his village. He pondered awhile and then in typical Penan fashion, embarked on
a small discussion with the people around him.
He then looked up and rolled out his requests, starting with a request for the
intense logging activities in his area to be stopped, for a school and health
clinic to be built in Long Lamam for his villagers
and other neighbouring villages and proper long
houses for their use.
"And most importantly, we would like a bridge across the Selaan river so that we have access to the main road,"
he said, amid laughter from his villagers as though they know these will never materialise.
Tomorrow:
Conspiracy abounds over delay in Penan IC applications
[Photos by Maran
Perianen]