Tong Tana December 1999 - Bruno Manser Fonds

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Editorial 2 New times are dawning bm – On skis, by bike, motorbike, car, train and jet. Faster and faster we race through space. We compress time. Yi Pee! How the landscape is flying by! Being present at the other end of the world by TV, cell phone, fax, Internet, satellite. Yi Pee! For just a moment. Quick! Everywhere! Antisocial The national train service (SBB) closes public toilets because they do not pay and is starting business abroad. Merger-itis of the biggest against the rest of the world in a small unknown village far away. The market wants a free hand – anonymously! Several politicians play along: they speak of transparency and resist product declaration. They call it development and cut school subsidies because “dumb” people don’t ask questions and buy more when it’s cheaper. Others far away in the unknown village pay the difference. Yet new times are dawning. A singer sings of love, of the search for real life and of a yearning which captivates young and old alike: a yearning to become oneself – uniquely – to find one’s own treasure. McDonalds Benson & Hedges and Coke Is self-realization dependent on company brands Enough of the standard fare of the multinationals, being served every step of the way by their advertising servants, then being consumed! I now set my table using my own imagination. To share a good meal with you To snuggle up at night; the cosy company of good friends or strangers make a home. To help one another, to let yourself be helped in need. “What, you have not yet invested your assets profitably – “No! I already gave them away before the stock exchange crashed! Before others blow it all, before they throw away what I held dear, I already share now what is too much for me and what little I have left then becomes valuable.” Yesterday the postal employee paid the missing cents for the postage on my packet out of his own pocket. Today I give a stranger with no change a tram ticket. With every good deed paradise will already begin today. The reports from Sarawak are not rosy, and our work at the BMF is growing over our heads – your contribution commits us to keep going. We’re sticking with it as long as our strength and finances last. Happy new millennium! Bruno Manser and the BMF team Contents Editorial 2 Sarawak - Malaysia 3–9 Speaking of Wood 10 Switzerland 11–14 BMF internal affairs 15 Penan folk tale 16 “Hey, Mr. Surgeon, is the handle of your instrument by chance not made of tropical wood!” Tong Tana Published by Bruno-Manser-Fonds (BMF) Association for the peoples of the rainforest Heuberg 25, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland Telephone ++41(61)261 94 74 Fax ++41(61)261 74 73 e-mail: info@bmf.ch Internet: http://www.bmf.ch Editors: Bruno Manser, John Kunzli Authors: B. Manser (bm), J. Kunzli (jk), David Koechlin (dk), Dominik Bucheli (db) Photos: B. Manser, BMF, E. Bruenig, J. Schar, L.P. Chiang Drawings: B. Manser, Larissa Schönfelder Translations: R. Gogel (French), B. Jäckli (English), J. Kunzli, B. Manser (German) Edition: 6200 (4000 German, 1500 French, 700 English) Published three times a year Please note: Voluntary contributions are very welcome and much needed ! Thank you! Donations: Switzerland/Liechtenstein: Post account: 40-5899-8 Coop Bank account, 4002 Basel, Acct. 421329.29.00.00-5 France: La Poste, Strasbourg, Acct. CCP 2.604.59T Germany: Deutsche Bank, Lörrach (BLZ 683 700 34) Acct. 1678556 Printed by Gremper AG, Basel
Sarawak - Malaysia Taib Mahmud – Chief Minister without power bm – In 1987, 4700 natives of Sarawak brought 1600 loggers with 210 bulldozers to a standstill for months with peaceful roadblocks in order to preserve their virgin forests with all their vitally essential resources from the wilderness. The Chief Minister Taib Mahmud replied with a hunting ban for non-residents and declared areas as biosphere reserves for the Penan. But not a soul ever took notice of Taib’s decision: up to the present day employees of the logging companies can plunder wildlife stocks unhindered using rifles and fish the indigenous peoples’ rivers empty using illegal methods, even in designated protected areas. Poachers, water pollution and violence: Lakei Suti (“the short man”), a Penan nomad from the Magoh river reports: they secretly carry out electrical fishing in our area. At the fork to the Patah river we met them with two cars loaded full of fish which they wanted to sell downriver in Limbang. At the Meli-it we saw many dead fish floating down the river one day. They had fished with poison but only took the largest, not even collecting fish as thick as a lower arm, so many were killed! When we wanted to prevent a logger from fishing in our river with a casting net, he unlocked his rifle and pointed it at close range right at my chest. We could only deflect the shot upwards into the trees through a blow on the barrel! Employees of the Ravenscourt Company (Samling Group) set many snares; many mouse deer, porcupines and argus pheasants died in them as well as one of our dogs. They shoot deer and wild boar and when the wounded animal stumbles down onto steep ground they just climb back into their car and drive off. If this continues we will soon not have any animals left! And the poison with which they spray their stored timber, their machine oil which they just pour into the ground – doesn’t the rain wash all this into the riverwater with which we make our sago and which we drink! The Raut Company had promised not to fell any wood in the protected area on the Magoh Borneo Post, July 15th, 1987 river designated by the government as ours. When they nevertheless crossed the watershed with their bulldozers at the Batu Iran we took the foreman to task. He then called the manager Ling who came out of his car with a crate of Coca-Cola. He placed the crate in front of us and invited us to drink. Enraged, we threw the Coke cans down the slope one after the other. He then called for help from the forestry commissioner Kusui who came and said he was from the government. He fired a salvo of shots right over our heads from close range so that the smoke got in our noses and our ears hurt. And then Taib Mahmud and his government says we Penan have it easy! Why does he not teach his people good manners! Mobile Dental clinic: appeal to Taib “We ask our Chief Minister Taib Mahmud to accept Bruno Manser’s offer of a mobile dental clinic for us in the headwater regions so that our teeth can be mended soon,” said T.K. Kayan Etek, governmentappointed chief and Penan from the Ulu Limbang. 3 Ikan Cemáh
Page 1: January 2000 Newsletter on rainfore
Page 5 and 6: Proposed Biosphere Area in Eastern
Page 7 and 8: Mutang Urud meeting in Malaysia, he
Page 9 and 10: Arson in Sarawak I jk - The forest
Page 11 and 12: Switzerland Derborence Sion A virgi
Page 13 and 14: With disdain! Arson in the rainfore
Page 15 and 16: BMF Internal Where have the poison

Tong Tana December 1999 - Bruno Manser Fonds

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