“Sarawak Energy said the 944-megawatt dam began filling in late September and would be completed within 14 months.
It added that relocation of affected natives was set to be completed by year-end and insisted that displaced villagers were being compensated fairly.
The company dismissed the protest as “instigated” by activists.”
Sarawak Energy and its political supporters in the State Government have consistently attempted to blame any native protest against the grabbing of their lands on being “instigated by activists”. The outsider CEO, Torstein Sjotveit, is particularly fond of setting himself up as the ‘genuine voice’ of native people, whose best interests he says, lie in being brutally modernised, according to his outdated mega-industrialisation concepts. So, were the 13 year old boy, his teenage friend and the 6 other Penan arrested today the ‘instigators’ Sarawak Energy’s CEO had in mind? Or have the Penan been ‘brainwashed’ by Sarawak Report? Perhaps, he should try and issue a warrant for arrest in the UK!