International gathering to mark 2nd anniversary of blockade against proposed construction of Baram dam

MIRI, Oct 13, 2015  – An international event will be held here from Oct 19 to 24 to mark the second anniversary of the blockade against the proposed construction of Baram-1 dam and the moratorium of works on the project.

The World Indigenous Summit on Environment and Rivers (WISER Baram 2015) will be attended by representatives of indigenous peoples from Brazil, Honduras, Chile, the Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia, Australia, the United States of America and the Wintu tribe of California.

The foreign delegates will be accompanied by local participants from the various Malaysian dams.

SAVE Rivers chairman Peter Kallang (5th from left) with other members of the event organising committee

While the summit is to celebrate the two years anniversary of the blockade against the Baram dam and welcoming the moratorium, it is also is to build solidarity and sharing experience among the indigenous facing the threat posed by mega dams.

The two parts event will start with a visit to a village in the Baram district which would be flooded if the proposed dam is built.

They will also visit the blockade camp sites. 

The celebration will then end with a conference in Miri City and this will be followed by a community dinner the evening of Oct 24.

The dinner ticket is open to all those who support the international struggle of the indigenous peoples against mega dams.

Peter Kallang, the chairman of SAVE Rivers who hosts the event ,urged those champion international human rights and protect the environment to buy the dinner tickets.

Those interested in joining the dinner can call, Caroline on 012 9780005. Maria on 014 681 0313 or Helen on 014 594 3345.

The blockade against the Baram-1 dam, started on Oct 23, 2013, will be two years old this month.

Two years ago, workers doing the preliminary works for the proposed dam were evicted by the Baram villagers.

To ensure that no further works were carried out on the ground, two base camps were built for monitoring purposes.

 In stopping the construction of the access road to the proposed site for the dam, a monitoring base camp was built in Long Lama which is about 200 km from Miri city, while another monitoring base camp was built in Long Keseh which is 250 Km from Miri to stop works on the proposed dam site and it’s reservoir. 

Since the two base camps were erected, they have been continuously manned and thus the blockades against the Baram-1 dam is claimed to be the longest continuously manned blockade in Sarawak.

On July 30 this year, Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem announced a moratorium on work for the dam.

While the villagers in Baram welcome the moratorium, they still maintain the base camps to stop the logging activities which are carried out under “Salvage Logging” permit given by the government in anticipation of the proposed Baram-1 dam.

The native rights on land proposed for the dam site and its reservoir were taken from them with gazettes issued by the government.

“The people appeal to the government to revoke the logging permits and the gazettes and then they will review the relevance of the blockades,” Kallang said.