Baram Dam: Bid to expel indigenous people denounced

Government and companies are complicit in violating the freedom of assembly and land rights of local communities, say three rights groups.

Baram Dam permanent blockade

Malaysian and international human rights organisations have united to publicly condemn the actions taken by authorities and logging company representatives to intimidate Indigenous Peoples in Sarawak at the proposed site of the Baram Dam.

On 21 October, coercive action was taken by police from the General Operation Force (GOF), Forest Department officers and personnel representing logging interests from the company M M Golden to pressure residents of Long Kesseh to abandon their customary lands and disperse from the site, where they had set up a barricade.

As a result of the violation of rights outlined in the national constitution and provisions of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, an urgent appeal was submitted on 22 October to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz.

The appeal calls on her to raise concerns with the government of Malaysia about the actions taken to forcefully dismantle the barricade, which had been set up a year ago by local residents of Long Kesseh to assert their native customary rights (NCR) to land being allocated against their will for the Baram Dam site.

Exactly one year ago, on 23 October 2013, the people of Long Kesseh set up a barricade on an area of native customary land that would be submerged if the 1200MW Baram hydroelectric project is built as proposed by Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB).

If this dam is completed, it would inundate 26 villages, including Long Kesseh, flooding 400 square kilometres of land and displacing between 6000 and 20,000 people. In response to SEBs efforts to begin preparatory work for the Baram Dam, residents of Long Kesseh and surrounding areas symbolically marked their defiance by building a barricade on their own land.

The members of longhouses to be affected by the Baram Dam, including Long Kesseh, have never given consent for any timber clearance or other preparatory project works to proceed on customary lands.

Yet, agents working with M M Golden Sdn Bhd are claiming the land is part of a concession they were granted. Although the circumstances related to the issuing of their logging permit remain ambiguous, the company has become associated with Sarawak Energy Berhads efforts to clear timber around the Baram River and help pave the way for the construction of the proposed Baram hydroelectric project.

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Baram Dam: Bid to expel indigenous people denounced