Extracted from Malaysiakini

Penan blockades: AFP the agent provocateur, claim papers

Keruah Usit | Aug 26, 09 11:58am

Two Sarawak newspapers, the Borneo Post and the See Hua Daily News have published several articles accusing French news agency AFP of being the "foreign instigators" responsible for Penan blockades in Sarawak.

Both newspapers posted banner headlines on Aug 2, accusing four AFP journalists of "instigating" Penan villagers to erect blockades across access roads, to keep controversial logging and plantation companies off Penan land.

The Borneo Post blared "Foreign hands in blockades", with photographs taking up half its front page. The pictures "caught" the four journalists standing near Penan blockades at Long Nen and Long Bangan in Baram. They were apparently taken by a logging camp manager.

The images were in colour, making it clear that one of the "foreigners" was a white woman with light-coloured hair. A red arrow in the photo, pointing at her head, further highlighted her presence among the brown-skinned Penan.

"It's confirmed!" the unnamed reporter exclaimed. "Foreigners are behind many of the blockades set up by Penans in timber camps in the state."

Local police chief ASP Jonathan Jalin was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying the four foreigners were stopped by police on the road back to Miri.

Jalin said the foreigners were not arrested, although police reports had been lodged against them by a logging camp manager.

The Sarawak government passed a law, the Forest Ordinance Amendment 1987, in support of logging companies, declaring it a crime for anyone to simply stand near a logging blockade.

Jalin did not explain why these foreign men and women, reported to be a Briton, a Pakistani and two Australians, were not charged.

Even so, the prompt response of the police to the logging company's report is in sharp contrast to their failure to investigate a series of high-profile reports of alleged rape of Penan schoolgirls by logging camp workers.

Local communities reject plantations

According to Mark Bujang, executive director of local indigenous rights advocates, The Borneo Research Institute, Malaysia (Brimas), the four foreigners were AFP journalists, interviewing the Penan.

"Brimas wishes to state the facts that the Penans from Long Nen and Long Bangan are not happy with Pusaka-KTS (PKTS) Forest Plantation Sdn Bhd for establishing an acacia and eucalyptus plantation within their native customary rights (NCR) land.

"PKTS never obtained the villagers' prior consent when they wanted to establish the plantation, and also ignored the pleas and protests from the Penans," said Bujang.

The Penan themselves have often spoken of their plight, although the political establishment has ignored them.

"Since these companies came in, life has been very hard for us. Before, it was easy to find animals in the forest and hunt them with blowpipes," said Alah Beling, headman of Long Belok, one of the Penan villages involved in blockades all over Baram.

"We're not afraid. They're the ones destroying my property. Last time we didn't know the law and how to protect ourselves, but now we know our rights," said Ngau Luin, the chief of Long Nen.

Bujang said the blockades are a desperate, spontaneous measure taken by local communities, in the face of the threat of losing their land and forests. The Penan rely on the forests for survival.

"As a result of PKTS' non-compliance with the forest ordinance...disregarding the NCR of the Penans, these two villages decided to take direct action by erecting blockades to stop PKTS from further encroachment into their native customary land.

It is through their own initiative that the Penans decided to erect the blockades, and (it is) not orchestrated by foreigners," said Bujang said.

Bujang said the NCR land of 3,000 people in more than 20 villages in the Apoh-Tutoh area is threatened by Pusaka KTS plantations. Pusaka KTS is owned jointly by the politically well-connected logging company KTS and the Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation (STIDC or Pusaka), a government-linked company.

Men, women and children from different communities throughout Sarawak - including the gentle Penan - have been standing behind blockades, constructed across logging and plantation access roads to claim their ancestral land, since the 1980s.

The ensuing delays cost the companies tens of thousands of ringgit a day. Blockades have been rebuilt despite brutal reprisals by police and the logging companies.

Over a hundred native communities await the results of lawsuits against logging, plantation and dam construction companies, and the state government.

These native litigants, aiming to defend their NCR land across the state, have been cursed with interminable delays.

No retractions

The KTS newspapers have not retracted their allegations. Instead, after Bujang's statement, the newspapers carried further comments alleging "foreign instigation".

An unidentified logging camp manager was quoted as saying the foreign journalists had been behaving "aggressively and provocatively". There was no attempt to verify his claim independently.

Sarawak Housing Minister Abang Johari Openg alleged in the Borneo Post on Aug 23 that "the foreigners, especially NGOs, who are not happy with us, are definitely involved in blockades... as advisers, indirectly or directly.

"In this case it is already direct. Even if they claim to be journalists, or are truly journalists, they should just cover (the story) and not get involved. But they were caught in action."

Sarawak Rural Development Minister James Masing (right) admitted some logging companies had "caused extensive damage". However, Masing accused the Penan of being "good storytellers", saying they should not be believed wholesale.

"The Penan are the darlings of the West, they can't do any wrong in the eyes of the West," said Masing.

The Penan are portrayed as having no voice, mind, nor agency of their own; they are always described by government officials as acting only under foreign "instigation".

The AFP journalists have left Sarawak. But the local Penan continue to face the combined might of the government, the police, the logging and plantation companies, and the mainstream media.

"According to Penan sources, four policemen visited the blockades on Sunday and announced that they would come back with more of their colleagues to dismantle them," the Swiss-based NGO Bruno Manser Fund said in a press release on Aug 24.

Even if it were true that the Penan are good storytellers, it appears their story is being drowned out by the strident voice of Malaysia's mainstream media.

Meanwhile, their forests - and their livelihood - continue to be devoured by wealthy urban companies.