‘Penan tribe must stop living in the jungles’ says Malaysian politician
December 11, 2009
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A Malaysian politician has said that the Penan tribe of Borneo must ‘stop living in the jungles’, according to the country’s Star newspaper. A cabinet minister has also dismissed claims by Penan women that they have been raped by loggers.
The Star newspaper quotes Sarawak state assemblyman Lihan Jok, referring to a ‘peace deal’ he says was made with Penan who mounted road blockades against logging and plantations companies earlier this year.
‘We (the state government) are serious in wanting to help these Penans but they must leave their semi-nomadic lifestyle and settle down permanently. We will build resettlement schemes for them. Then we will give them enough land to generate economic activities like farming. We will also give them jobs in rubber plantations. These Penans must accept this resettlement plan or the peace deal won’t work.’
Research by Survival shows that the removal of Indigenous peoples from their land against their will and the imposition of a different way of life upon them is disastrous for their health.
Several Penan villages mounted road blockades in July and August this year to try to keep logging and plantation companies out of their forests. One young Penan man told Survival, ‘We wish the government would come and talk to us and ask us what development we really want and need.’
The government of the Malaysian state of Sarawak does not recognize the Penan’s rights to their land. It backs logging and oil palm companies that are destroying the rainforests the tribe rely on for food, water and shelter. It is also building a series of huge hydroelectric dams which will flood the homes of thousands of Penan and other Indigenous people.
In a separate interview broadcast on Monday on the BBC’s flagship radio news programme ‘Today’, the Sarawak Cabinet Minister for Land Use, James Masing, was dismissive when asked about a young Penan girl who said she had been beaten unconscious and raped. ‘They change their stories, and when they feel like it,’ said Masing. ‘That’s why I say Penan are very good story tellers.’
The Malaysian government confirmed in a report released in September that Penan women and girls as young as ten have been raped and sexually abused by logging company workers in Sarawak.
