Kuching, Oct 6, 2012: The Penans are intensifying their blockade on Murum dam construction and against the Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) with another linkage road to the dam site being blockaded yesterday.
More Penans, including women and children, have joined the blockade, which entered its 10th day today.
Picture: A young Penan mother, with two-month old baby,is also joining in the blockade.
The second blockade is mounted on an old logging track, passing through an oil palm plantation, and is narrow and only passable by four-wheel drive vehicle.
SEB is using the road as an alternative route to the dam site for the past three days.
Since the Penans started the blockade on Sept 26, SEB and other companies have stopped using the main access road to Murum dam project site.
The major works on the construction of the dam have been paralyzed over the last one week.
The drivers have left home and let their cement tankers, lorry trucks and trailers with building materials had been hauled over and park at the road side near the blockade site.
The access to the construction site of Murum hydroelectric dam project is totally blocked on all directions with the setting-up of second road blockade by the Penans.
The number of Penans involved in the blockade has increased from 200 to 320 comprising the people from eight Penan villages and a Kenyah-Badeng village of Long Umpa near Long Malim in Danum River.
Within these few days more Penans are expected to join as most of them have completed planting their hill paddy farms.
The Penans are setting camps around the blockade site at Seping River Bridge, about 40 Km from Murum Hydroelectric dam project site.
They are making makeshift huts “sulap” covered with wild-ginger and palm leaves as well as plastic canvases.
Those families came with their babies, young children and elderly parents are occupying an old logging camp workshop nearby the site.
Some of them made their huts using the deposed old zinc sheets that they managed to salvage at the old logging camp site.
Villageman of Long Luar, Madai Salo said that all his family members are involved in the road blockade. He came with his wife, sons and daughters together with his granddaughter of 2 months old.
Labang Paneh, a representative from Long Wat village stated that the blockade is a collective action of all the Penan villages affected by the construction of Murum dam project.
“We will not remove the blockade or move out of here until our demands are resolved and fulfilled by the government”, he said.
Villageman of Long Wat, Pinang Bo blamed SEB for being disrespectful to the customs of the Penan community in Murum area.
He said that SEB has intentionally destroying the most important Penan’s scared and historical sites of Batu Tungun, Batu Pebin and Batu Aseu at the project site and with lots more will be destroyed in due time by the construction of the dam.
The Penans reported that the China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation and its Chinese contractor companies have told their Chinese workers not to leave their camps and the Murum dam construction site for fearing of safety and of any untoward incident with the locals.
As to maintain security, peace and order at the project area, the government has deployed some at least 20 police personnel from the General Operations Forces to the blockade site. Some of these police are stationed at the Murum dam construction site.
The blockade, which entered entered its tenth day, involved the Penans from the villages of Long Wat, Long Luar, Long Tangau, Long Menapa, Long Singu and Long Malim, Long Peran and Long Jaik, together with a Kenyah-Badeng village of Long Umpa.
The Penans are protesting against the negligence of the government to act and respond to their issues, problems and demands with regard to the construction of Murum dam project.
They are also protesting against SEB for being disrespectful to their customs by destroying their scared and historical sites without their consent.
SEB, a Sarawak Government-owned power supplier, has awarded the contract work of the Murum dam project to China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation for an estimated cost of RM3 billion.
The progress of the construction work on the major structures of the dam is about 70% completed.
When completed, the Murum dam will flood about 24,500 hectares of native customary rights land and forest of the Penan villages.
The dam catchment area is 275,000 hectares comprising the mainly Pelieran, Danum and Usun Apau Plateau, the ancestral land of the indigenous communities in Sarawak.
The Murum dam project is scheduled to be ready by 2013
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