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Extracted from Malaysiakini
The death of a Penan mother
Keruah Usit
| May 27, 09 11:20am
Justin Jusieh, a young Penan man from a
small, isolated settlement in upriver Sarawak, sat at the breakfast table and
recounted, in a quiet voice, the death of his mother, Jari
Lenau.
“My mother was healthy until the middle of December 2007,” Justin said. “She
started bleeding, as if she was having her monthly period, only the bleeding
went on and on.
“She went to the nearest clinic at Long Lellang, half
an hour away by boat. The nurse there examined her, but after she got home, the
bleeding got worse.
“Two weeks later, my mother suddenly became very weak and nearly
fainted. She couldn’t get up. Our village health representative immediately
went to the clinic to ask the dresser (medical assistant) to call for the
helicopter to take my mother to the hospital.
“The dresser told us, ‘It’s not easy to call for a helicopter. It’s expensive.
If she’s not really sick, I’ll get told off for calling the helicopter. Just bring
her to the clinic before I leave. I’m taking the flight out to town at 10.15
this morning.’
“We explained she was too weak to be brought to the clinic. We appealed to him
to visit her at the village and give her some medicine while waiting for the helicopter
to arrive.
“He said angrily, ‘You remember her pregnancy a year ago? Do you
remember I told her to go to the hospital in town for the doctors to treat her?
Her husband refused to take her. If this time she dies, maybe that’s her
choice.’
“We told him that Jari did not refuse to go. Jari had no money to go to the hospital when she was
pregnant - it was too far and too expensive. ‘Now she’s ill and it wasn’t her
choice to fall ill,’ we said.
“The dresser replied, “I have to get on the plane soon. If someone has really
been bleeding for two weeks like you say, there’s no hope. She’s going to die.’
“We urged him to try to save her. ‘She’s alive, just as you and we are, still
living and breathing,’ we told him.
“He replied, ‘There’s no point. I’m going to weigh my bags at the airstrip now.
If she dies, she dies! What can be done?’
“Later, when he was boarding the small
“When we were leaving the airstrip, we heard the dresser talking to the young
nurse from the clinic.
“The nurse was telling him that she could not treat Jari
properly, even if the sick woman was carried to the clinic. She said there weren’t
enough facilities at the health clinic, or ‘klinik kesihatan’, for such an ill patient.
“Then the dresser got on the plane and left. We returned to our village at
The land is not ours to give away
Justin’s village had no road connection to the nearest town and hospital, 200
kilometres away. The rough logging company track was often unpassable.
Even if it had been possible to travel by land, Justin and his father could not
have afforded to hire a truck to take her to the town.
“My mother died that same afternoon, at
“We wish people would not ignore the Penan,” the village health representative
said. “We’re not lying when we say we have no cash to get to the hospital in
town. We welcome treatment when we’re sick. We welcome development with open
hearts.”
The village health representative continued, “My son told me this dresser had
scolded him: ‘Your father is a useless man. He brought the Penan from the
village to set up a blockade against the logging company, to block the logging
road. Logging brings development. Development won’t arrive easily in your
village, because of the blockade. Thanks to him, the Penan in your village don’t have development’.
“That’s not true,” the Penan leader went on. “Of course we want
development. We’re human beings, just like everyone else. Our lives are
important, just like other people’s lives are important. We support the medical
treatment we receive, and the clinic in the next village. We send our children
to the school in the next village. We’re grateful for the airstrip there too.
“But all these facilities came before the logging company moved in. The logging
company didn’t bring the development.
“We don’t support the company. The company takes away our land, our forests.
Our land is all we have. Our land is our life.”
He said gently, “We have been friends with the dressers in the clinic before.
When we went hunting, we shared the food with the dressers in the past. This
dresser was different. He hated us. At least, he has left the clinic now. He
has been transferred back to his home area in Betong.”
Just before the dresser, or medical assistant, was transferred out from the
clinic, he welcomed a visiting government official. He showed the visitor
around the tiny health clinic.
A middle-aged Penan lady from Jari’s
village shook her head in disbelief when she heard the dresser boasted, “This
is the best health clinic in the district.”
The villagers do not understand why the government accuses the Penan, the
Kenyah, the Iban, and other natives of opposing the government when the natives
protest against logging companies.
The natives only erected a simple blockade of sticks and branches across the
logging road, they said, because the company refused to negotiate with them.
The excellent article, ‘Painting Penan reality’ by
John Riwang on the ‘Hornbill Unleashed’ blog, provides some clues.
“We are only protecting our communal land,” the village health representative
explained. “We cannot give away the land to the logging company, because it is
not ours to give away. It belongs to our children, to future generations. The
company offered me 20,000 ringgit in cash, to
persuade the rest of our village to take down the blockade. I said no, because
I can’t sell what I don’t have.
“The YB state assemblyman came to our area,” he went on. “The YB
told us, ‘Other villages allow the company in and they accept development. They
are at the front of development in
Justin had the courage to write to the authorities, and to Suhakam,
the national human rights commission, to bring their attention to Jari’s death. The villagers hoped that the injustice
inflicted on Jari and her family would never happen
to anyone else.
They have not heard news of any investigations.