Orang Asal want Baram scrapped, not cold-storaged

Sarawak Government has yet to revoke the gazette on the land in the dam site and the logging permits issued for felling the timber.

KUCHING: The Orang Asal in Sarawak want the proposed RM4 billion dam in Baram scrapped and not merely cold-storaged for the moment. They fear that Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem may have announced putting off the dam project due to the state elections which has to be held by mid-2016 but which may be brought forward by several months.

They have also been left wondering why Adenan wants the two-year blockade at the dam site dismantled, “as a sign of good faith”, if the project had been cold-storaged.

“The blockade does not affect the people using the road,” said Peter Kallang of Save Rivers, an NGO which is spearheading a campaign against the dam project. “If there’s a moratorium on the project, there’s no reason why anyone should go there.”

“The blockade is being maintained to prevent logging at the dam site.”

Kallang pointed out that illegal logging was in fact going on in the whole of the Baram Basin.

He was commenting on Adenan saying on TV3 during a Malaysia Day interview that he had placed a moratorium on the Baram Dam but other similar projects may be scrapped and instead the Sarawak Government would consider alternative energy options like solar power, among others, or mini-hydro.

Kallang said that Adenan’s statement on Baram left unresolved the status of the land gazetted at the dam site and logging permits issued by the Sarawak Government for timber in the area. “The people would only feel comfortable if the logging permits and the gazette are revoked.”

Already, a fact-finding Suhakam team last month found that the Orang Asal were completely against the proposed Baram Dam which, it has been charged, would affect 20,000 people and submerge 400 sq km of their ancestral lands.

The six-man Suhakam team, led by Nurul Hassanah Ahmad Hussain Malim, visited Long San, Tanjung Pelipat, Long Selatong Bekian, and Long Liam.

The 1,200 MW Baram is one of 12 dam projects planned by the Sarawak Government to power the Sarawak Corridor for Renewable Energy (Score), an industrial belt of energy-intensive industries in central Sarawak.