The people advising Sarawak Energy (SEB), in particular Australia’s Hydro Tasmania, have taken every opportunity to portray the dams planned for Sarawak as a ‘sustainable’ and ‘renewable’ energy source, without bad consequences like fossil fuel. Hydro Tasmania in fact frequently implies that dams are “carbon neutral” and has declared that the company itself will become […]
NCR landowners in Sampadi have learnt the hard way how nothing can be trusted in the hands of BN, with party top dogs now fighting with each other to get hold of their lands. In July a group of 12 villagers from Kampung Gerunggang had decided to sell some of their NCR (Native Customary Rights)
The Taib family’s Australian company, Ta Ann Tasmania, is fuming because protestors held up their saw mills for some hours on Monday and again on Wednesday, by chaining themselves to the conveyor belts. Ta Ann’s spokesperson claimed that the world should be “outraged” and that the passive male and female protestors from the group Groundswell
Nick Wright is the Australian from Tasmania who acts as Vice President at Sarawak Energy Berhad in charge of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR). In particular, he is in charge of the ‘re-settlement’ of tens of thousands of indigenous people due to be flooded from their homes by the damming of 12 major rivers. So, surely
The UK’s top selling paper the Daily Mail has also taken up the recent report condemning HSBC for bank-rolling Taib’s greedy destruction of Sarawak’s rain forests. The NGO Global Witness has released a major analysis showing how the bank, which claims to apply ‘green’ principles to its lending criteria, has nevertheless provided lending to such
Last year Mahmud made a big fuss, calling Sarawak Report liars for drawing attention to the fact that he has destroyed nearly all of Sarawak’s rainforest. We had said that less than 5% of the primary jungle remains and even that is now being cut down. But the Chief Minister went on record to deny it
Earlier this month, Friday 12th October, onlookers in the Wisma Bapa Malaysia in Kuching were treated to an astonishing scene. The elderly Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud and his very young wife Ragad indulged in a public row in the foyer of his office building. Ragad had apparently turned up at the building and demanded to
Police numbers are being increased around the Penan blockade at the Murum Dam. Yesterday, they announced that they had detained an NGO sympathiser, who was bringing food and declared that this humanitarian act was ‘incitement’. “It is not wrong if he had sent the items to the Penans at their longhouse”, stated the local police
As the Penan people of Murum enter the fourth week of their blockade against the Murum Dam, local and international NGOs have rallied to their support. On Friday protestors, surrounded by news reporters, gathered outside Hydro-Tasmania’s impressive tower block headquarters in Hobart to demand that the company cease its lucrative partnership programme with Sarawak Energy.[click
Taib’s BN Ministers have been going blue in the face, complaining “instigators” are behind the Murum blockade and saying that all is now settled with the Penan at Murum dam. Top side kick and very unaccountably wealthy Planning Minister, Awang Tenga has been leading the attack alleging that the community are now happy with the
Penan blockaders, who have brought construction on the Murum Dam to a standstill over the past ten days, have reacted with outrage at the news that their assemblyman, BN’s Liwan Lagang, has been telling the media that a settlement has been reached. In response they have instead tightened and extended the blockade to another approach
We want to thank donors to the Murum appeal. CONTRARY TO RUMOURS PUT ABOUT BY BN, THE BLOCKADE IS STILL UNDERWAY AS THE PEOPLE OF MURUM DEMAND FULL NEGOTIATION OVER THEIR DEMANDS. We have raised a growing sum which has already been used to send foodstuffs to the village people blockading at the roadside. The
Access our released version of the “Resettlement Action Plan” …
We can disclose that shocking revelations from a leaked report are what lie behind the massive road block at the Murum Dam site, where scores of lorries have been brought to a grinding halt by Penan tribespeople. The impoverished hunter-gatherers mounted the desperate protest in response to learning key details of the resettlement and compensation
Hydro-Tasmania’s tantrums over the recent Dateline Australia film ‘Last Fontier’ have been exposed as entirely misleading. A report by Sarawak Energy Bhd has detailed how, contrary to denials, the dam-building company is engaged in a leading ‘co-development’ and ‘partnership’ role in the implementation of Taib’s devastating plans for the so-called Sarawak Corridor of Energy (SCORE). These
Taib Mahmud has kept largely silent over the growing uproar about his vast illegal wealth. However, last year he broke this silence by declaring in the Dun Assembly itself that the news that the Swiss President had agreed to start a formal investigation into his possible assets in Switzerland was a malicious lie: “Let me
Sarawak’s dam builders are learning how hard it is to stem a leak. The truth about Taib’s monstrous plans and their terrible impact on the people and the environment was finally revealed in a film by Australia’s Dateline programme, Last Frontier. Ever since that film was broadcast a couple of weeks ago the big players
He is the man who cashed-in an entire jungle of valuable hard timber. He is also the man who controls all the land titles for an area roughly the size of England, a position which he has systematically abused to enrich himself. Sarawak Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud, is furthermore the gate-keeper for all the state
A recent Dateline Australia programme, Last Frontier, addressed some issues of indisputable public interest and concern in both Tasmania and Sarawak. It examined policies in those countries that will affect the lives of tens of thousands of people and destroy some of the world’s remaining forest ecosystems. In short Dateline investigated the plans to flood
This weekend in Melikin police stood by and watched as a bulldozer destroyed the public bridge that had been built by the state to give access to the local people. It was an act of revenge by loggers, who are angry that these people have been trying to protect their Native Customary Lands from being
Following the expose on Australia’s Dateline programme last week, Taib’s state government has at last agreed to fulfil its own promises made to the people of Sungai Asap more than ten years ago. Land Development Minister, James Masing has now announced that these refugees are entitled to the homes into which they were forcibly moved
Hydro-Tasmania hit the airwaves in Australia yesterday, in order to defend their involvement with Taib Mahmud’s schemes to flood Sarawak and destroy its major rivers with twelve new unwanted dams. Roy Adair, the Chief Executive Officer of the state-owned company, sought to play down the company’s involvement in Taib’s insane master plan [..]
Australia’s longest-running and highly prestigious TV current affairs programme, Dateline, has just devoted a full half hour show to the problems of logging in Sarawak and to Taib Mahmud’s crazy plan to build 12 more dams in the state Their veteran reporter, David O’Shea, spent days filming in Sarawak and interviewing people who had been
Five campaigners from Melikin in Balai Ringen were arrested last week after false accusations were made against them by a plantation company. They were later released without charge. We can reveal that the owners of the companies that are grabbing their land are two of Taib Mahmud’s top Ministers!
The people who have been taking action against injustice are changing the mood in Sarawak at a faster and faster pace. Their courage and determination are sweeping away the history of the last decades of destruction[..]
