Repeated complaints from Bakun folks

By Utusan konsumer

Utunsan konsumer August 2001

2001-08-24 | BRPC (Bakun Region People's Committee) highlighted several adverse impacts of bakun to the displaced communities, which had been highlighted by SAM since 1999 with little positive response from the authorities.

Insufficient compensation

BRPC claimed that the survey process on their land had arbitrarily excluded many of their farm patches. This concerned areas were declared as either falling outside the perimeter of survey or was state land, resulting in the people receiving inadequate amounts of compensation money. In addition, there were also complaints of unsettled compensation payment. Worse, the families who had refused to move to Asap were denied 70 percent of the compensation money due to them.

They urged the Government to ensure that the Sarawak Land and Survey Department to re-conduct the survey process before the project proceeds any further to avoid the destruction of evidence when the area concerned are finally flooded.

Suffering in Sungoi Asap

BRPC demanded the authorities to allocate more land to the people in Asap as each family in the resettlement area was given only three acres if land, some of which is simply infertile or inaccessible. They warned that in the future the plots of land may degrade after repeated cultivation and the small size of the plot may give rise to inheritance conflicts.

They also requested that the people be provided with more job opportunities and work that could pay them more reasonably than the RM15 a day offered by the nearby oil palm plantations.

Due to the problems above, the letter disclosed that families in Uma Ukit and Uma Penan longhuuses had been experiencing food shortages with some families reduced to consuming a diet of rice without meat or fish daily or subsist on rice and salt or just having one meal a day and most of the families had had to spend their compensation money on purchasing fond.

In addition, they also demand that the new but shoddy and poorly constructed homes in Sungai Asap, which are priced at RM'52,000 and thus much more expensive than an average low cost home in Kuala Lumpur, be handed to them free of charge as the relocation scheme was clearly involuntary. They also voiced dissatisfaction nil their sew homes' inferior building material and design and poor workman-ship, stressing that "the size of this letter would riot be sufficient to list our dissatisfaction with the quality of these houses sold at such unaffordable prices,"

However, the compensation for their old homes, which were bigger and built with excellent workman-

ship, is presently retained by the State to offset the payment for the new homes, without their consent. This is clearly wrong because such all action has directly denied us the right to choose the location of our new homey ... and access to money that belongs to us."

Their letter also complained that Asap does nut have properly constructed roads, a cheap mode of public transport and a secondary school. "As for the children in primary schools, if their parents are unable to afford their transport fares, they are forced to board at the school and thus are separated from their families al such a tender age. In our old homes, our children used to travel to school by boats or on.foot."

Thus today, most of the relocated families have run out of their compensation money, are largely

jobless and immobile, and are burdened with unsettled water bills ."When access to water supply

is cut off, this would certainly cause adverse impacts in our lives. To make things worse, we are also unable to utilise water from the rivers in Asap and Koyan as domestic sewage from our bathrooms flows into them." Denied upstream choice Several of the affected families had decided not to move to Asap and instead chose to move further upstream because "we are not convinced that life in Asap will make us better off than before, as promised by the Government. We feel that the location of Asap is not a good choice for us and we believe that we have the right to decide on our future," As a result of this, the authorities are with-holding 70 percent of the total compensation money due to them.

BRPC instated these two issues "involve vastly different kinds of rights and they must not be associated in a manner that can be used against [the people]. We are entitled to be fully compensated as the residents ho have moved to Asap because we too have lost our land and properties in our ancestral home. At the same time, we also have the right, to choose the location of our new home and must not be forced to move to Asap. The issue of the payment of compensation money should be viewed as being independent from the issue of our refusal to move to Asap."

Stressing that the refusal to move to Asap was made on rational grounds that had been ignored by the authorities, they added that such an action is "a form of coercion that is used to force us to move to Asap,' a fact that even shocked Tan Sri Date' Anuar during the meeting.

Due to all the difficulties that they are facing in the resettlement scheme, many of the settlers today have decided to join the families who had moved upstream. The letter urged the authorities to recognise the people's right to remain in the location of their choice and as such, the location must be provided with basic facilities and services, like schools and clinics for the residents concerned "as the provision of such facilities is the responsibility of a government to its people, regardless of where the people are situated,'