Penans continue with Murum Dam blockade

By Joseph Tawie. Published by Free Malaysia Today on 10 October 2012.

The Penans have not dismantled their blockades against the Murum Dam construction despite reports appearing in the local dailies that they had done so. “The reports are all wrong, because the Penans are still there at the blockade sites,” said Raymond Abin, national coordinator of Sarawak Conservation for Natural Environment (SCANE). “I have just returned from the blockade sites,” he told FMT.

According to Abin, the Penan representatives met with Liwan Lagang, Assistant Minister of Culture and Heritage in Bintulu last week who promised them that each of the eight villages involved in the blockade would receive RM6,000 if they dismantled the blockade.

Lagang, who is also the Belaga state assemblyman, said that he would advance them with RM1,000 so that they could go to Kuching to discuss with the government their demands. The demands include compensation of RM500,000 for each family for the loss of their native customary rights land and 25 hectares of land for each of the families for farming activities and 300,000 hectares for their ‘pemakai menua’ (territorial domain).

In Kuching they were supposed to receive the RM6,000.

Abin said that the headmen told him that they did not believe that Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud would take them seriously. Instead of the headmen going to Kuching, they sent their young representatives. “When the Penan representatives went to Kuching, Lagang would have thought the blockades would have been dismantled. “Here he was wrong when he told the press that the blockades had been dismantled,” he said.

Negotiations in deadlock

Meanwhile, it is reported that the meeting between the Penan representatives and the government ended in a deadlock. It is understood that the Penan representatives would go to Kuala Lumpur to meet with the federal leaders regarding their demands.

The blockade was carried out on Sept 26 when the government failed to inform them of their future well-being and their demands. Last Thursday, the Penans put up another blockade at another road to the dam site. The blockades were mounted by the Penans from the villages of Long Wat, Long Luar, Long Tangau, Long Menapa, Long Singu and Long Malim, Long Peran and Long Jaik villages together with a Kenyah-Badeng village of Long Umpa. The blockades have paralysed work on the dam as scores of trucks and lorries loaded with building materials have been stranded.

The Sarawak government  has awarded the contract works of the Murum Dam project to China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation at an estimated cost of RM3 billion. The progress of the construction work on the major structures of the dam is about 70% complete. When completed the Murum Dam will flood about 24,500 hectares of native customary rights land and forest.

The dam catchment area is 275,000 hectares which comprise mainly Pelieran, Danum and Usun Apau Plateau, the ancestral land of the indigenous communities in Sarawak. The Murum Dam project is scheduled to be ready by 2013.

Link: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/10/10/penans-continue-with-murum-blockade/

Guatemalan peasants protesting rights abuses killed, UN dispatched

By Deborah Dupre, author, columnist and rights defender. Published by examiner.com on 6 October 2012.

Thousands of indigenous Guatemalans shouted in anger Friday and the United Nations human rights officers have been dispatched to the Department of Totonicapan in western Guatemala where the military and police brutalized and killed six indigenous people protesting energy and education rights abuses Thursday.

“We have received alarming information that six indigenous peasants were killed and at least 30 injured,” a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva.

"We were protesting right next to them when they opened fire on us," said Rolando Carrillo, a 25-year-old protester with a bandaged arm and lacerated face he said was from being hit during the clash. Six of the seven dead peasants were buried Friday afternoon in Totonicapan, where thousands gathered as the coffins of local people shot to death passed through the town's central square.

Hundreds shouted "Justice! Justice!" while dozens of mourners hurled themselves toward the coffins in grief.

The Associated Press reports,"Thousands of indigenous Guatemalans shouted in anger Friday about the deaths that occurred during a protest over electricity prices and educational reform in a poor rural area. According to reports, a large number of indigenous people placed several roadblocks in protest against increased electrical tariffs and other basic service provisions.

Mr. Colville noted conflicting reports about the location of the incident. “Details remain unclear and our office in Guatemala is shortly sending two teams of human rights observers – one to Sololá Department and one to Totonicapan – to verify the facts and follow up on the incidents,” he said.

USA Today reports that the protesters were blockading a highway near Totonicapan, about 90 miles west of Guatemala City. President Otto Perez Molina has now acknowledged that government forces opened fire during the protest Thursday. Molina has said earlier that police and troops on the scene were unarmed and that protesters provoked the clash.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, visited Totonicapan during her mission to Guatemala in March. She met with traditional indigenous authorities to discuss a range of human rights concerns. Ms. Pillay had noted that, although indigenous peoples constitute the majority of the nation's population, they continue to be subject to exclusion and denial of their human rights.

Guatemala was among the first signatories of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, that underscores indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination, that is, to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights.

In a May protest, approximately 200 people armed with machetes and guns briefly seized an army outpost in a province bordering Mexico to demand justice for the killing of a man who opposed constructing a hydroelectric plant. In response, Molina declared a state of siege in the area and granted the army emergency powers.

Link: http://www.examiner.com/article/guatemalan-peasants-protesting-rights-abuses-killed-un-dispatched