It’s not just about water, power supply for Orang Asli, say lawyers

PETALING JAYA: Lawyers campaigning for Orang Asli rights have welcomed Putrajaya’s announcement that indigenous settlements will be equipped with basic facilities by 2023, but recommend that ministers go down to the ground to assess the situation for themselves.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department P Waytha Moorthy had said 701 Orang Asli villages already had water supply, while 684 had access to electricity.

But Siti Zabedah Kasim, Hon Kai Peng, Cherian Kuruvila and Yogeswaran Subramaniam from the Malaysian Bar Council’s committee on Orang Asli Rights said the issue was not just about access to amenities.

“The numbers on the villages are not exhaustive, and many are left out of the list,” they said in a statement to FMT.

“We can give numerous examples from Pahang and Kelantan of villages which are fitted with pipes and taps but have no water flowing.”

They said the common complaint of the Orang Asli was that the rivers and waterfalls on which they depended for water supply were now dirty and muddy. This was why they would rather get water supply on their own, the lawyers added.

“It’s messed up down there,” they said. “The minister should not rely only on information provided by the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa).”

Lawyer Siti Kasim, who is vocal on Orang Asli rights, said even with the power poles and stations put in place by the government through Jakoa, many villages still lacked electricity supply.

“That is not what they really want,” she told FMT.

“What they want is for their land rights to be recognised. What they want is clean water, which they can get free of charge rather than installing water meters and imposing a fee.

“How are you going to get them to pay for it when they are living in the jungle?”

Yesterday, Waytha said the government was committed to upgrading infrastructure for the Orang Asli, including the supply of paved roads, a 24-hour electricity grid, treated water and stable communication network.

He said efforts were also being made to address the problem of dropouts among Orang Asli students, and that agencies such as Felcra and Risda were doing their part to get Orang Asli settlers involved in farming and entrepreneurship.

Siti Zabedah, Hon, Cherian and Yogeswaran urged the government to focus as well on providing incentives and specialised training for teachers who take up positions in Orang Asli schools.

They called for the drafting of a specific education budget and curriculum to cater to the needs of the Orang Asli.

“After all, this is contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Malaysia is a party,” they said, referring to the UN rights treaty which Malaysia signed in 1995.

On the matter of education, they said, it was the town people who needed to be educated first.

“The Orang Asli’s concept of development is vastly different from that of city folk who think only in terms of water and electricity as signs of development. That is wrong.

“The Orang Asli are happy as they are. It’s the development that encroaches into their lives (that is problematic). They lived well and at peace with the environment until the outsiders came,” the lawyers said, agreeing with Siti Kasim that the main concern of the Orang Asli was land rights.

“To take them out of their environment and resettle them in brick houses would kill the Orang Asli’s souls, if not their identity.” -FMT