Bruno Manser Fund has done nothing for Penans

by Sarawak Monitor

 BrunoManser was a fugitive in Sarawak and he broke all laws as a visitor/ foreigner; he was a criminal. To Malaysians in Sarawak, Bruno Manser is a pariah out to create a bad image of Sarawak just to portray himself as a hero. To us, there cannot be two rules one for the West and one for the East to treat him.

Bruno Manser entered Sarawak on a social pass. He had to leave once the pass expired after three months. He didn’t and instead, went into hiding to stay with a band of small nomadic Penan families in Ulu Limbang/ Ulu Baram area to evade arrests. The small band of families were part of about 500 Penans out of the total population of 5,000, who had opted to pursue the traditional nomadic lifestyle of the tribe. They wander over a wide area to collect and hunt for food and have the misconceived idea that the forests are theirs.

 

As a fugitive, Bruno Manser organized the Penans to hold blockades to disrupt timber operations with the primary objective to project very negative images of Sarawak, which he perceived to be ill treating the Penans, to the outside world. Initially, he did on the pretext of saving the world environment. However, he concentrated his activities in the jungles of Ulu Baram to stay with the nomadic Penans. What has such activities got to do with saving the world environment?

 

The Bruno website has been making all out efforts to display the sad and worrying faces of Penans with the evil intention to show that they do not have a future living in Sarawak. To some people, foreigners in particular, who have not met the Penans, those are their true faces, not sad or worrying faces; the older Penans do not even know how to smile.

 

Of course, foreigners are ignorant of efforts of the government to resettle the nomadic Penans to lead a more settled lifestyle. They are also ignorant of the fact that Penans constitute less than 5,000 people and only 500 of them are still wandering in the forests.

 

Obviously, the patterns of population where the people are scattered over a wide area are being exploited by Bruno Manser and other foreign NGOs on the pretext of championing their rights, for self interests. They do not bother with facts to make issues out of minor things in their attempts to discredit Sarawak.

 

Regrettably, Bruno Manser has been making determined efforts to mislead the Penans for his selfish interests. He was responsible in organising the Penans to go against the government’s concrete development program to bring them to the mainstream of development.

As Bruno Manser is a criminal, a wanted person by Malaysian authority, the civility of those who are operating under the camouflage of Bruno Manser Fund, is truly questionable.

 

The State Assemblyman of Telang Usan, a State Constituency in Ulu Baram, which is twice the size of Switzerland, Dennis Ngau, in his recent speech during sittings of the State Legislative Assembly, says “perhaps, not many people have met Bruno Manser as a person. He met Bruno Manser when the latter visited his “Kampung” (village) in the 70s. He can still remember vividly how he looked like. He does not think Bruno Manser, who claims to be the champion of the Penans or the natives against exploitation of the forests, can be trusted.

He says a lot of things have been said about Bruno Manser Fund, which has been soliciting for global sympathy and support for Penans in Sarawak, in Baram in particular. Obviously, the Fund has been collecting money on the pretext to help the poor Penans. But until today where have all the funds that have been collected over the years gone to?

 

Dennis Ngau says this is glaring as all Penan settlements that he has visited have facilities like school, clinics and so forth being provided by the State Government. What has Bruno Manser Fund done for the Penans? For example, there is no single toilet, let alone a clinic or school and other facilities being built Bruno Manser Fund.

 

Obviously, Bruno Manser Fund has made the Penans community to become the object or the commodity for sale in soliciting for fund. It has been giving a very negative image of Sarawak and the leaders, who have been working very hard to bring Penans to the mainstream of development.

 

 

Contrary to what foreign writers say about the ill treatments of Penans, the State government has been making conscientious efforts to persuade them to settle down and lead a more settled lifestyle. Those who have done so have become quite successful as businessmen, civil servants and academicians; some are now lecturers or tutors in universities or colleges. 

Indisputably, Dennis Ngau, who grew up with the Penans and still maintaining a close contact with them, has a close and deep understanding of the community. His late father was one of the few people who earned a deep respect of the Penan community, which gave him a nickname "Kulleh", or leopard for his contribution towards the well being of the Penans.

 

He admits, it pains him when the opposition challenges him with the recent so-called rapes of the Penan girls. His advice to them is to stop making use of the Penans to get political mileage. The State constituency of Telang Usan has 151 villages and longhouses, which are scattered over a wide area; he has visited all of them.

Generally, Malaysians in Sarawak is quite familiar with the civilization of Switzerland, a small landlocked country in Europe. For example, until 50 and 60s, the country with no natural resources, was still poor to such an extent that parents had to hand over their children for financial compensation even to strangers, who would often subject them to sexual abuses or child labor.

             

Now most of them have died or living in shame. BBC’s regular TV program “Reporters” last Sunday evening revealed that some of the children as young as seven years old would be handed over by their mothers, because of the pressure of life after the Second World War, to strangers to work in orchards or small factories. Subsequently, the children, as they grew up, would lose contact with their families.

 

Yet the Swiss Government has not apologized to them or acknowledges that such inhumane treatments of children ever took place. In this respect, the successive Swiss Governments, unlike the Australian and New Zealand governments remain insensitive to the feelings of people, who had been robbed of their childhood.

 

The Australian government has apologized to the Aborigines for the ill treatments that had been muted on them in the earlier years and the New Zealand government to the Maoris for the same reason.

 

Recently, the world was shock with the news that a Swiss man kept his daughter for 26 since she was 14 in the underground bunker. She subsequently bore him five children, through rapes and tortures. One of the babies died at birth and the body was burnt in the bunker. The whole episode came to light when her eldest daughter, who was 19, had to be rushed out of the bunker to the hospital for emergency treatment.

 

Obviously, the neighbors had been insensitive to what had been going on near them. It would be impossible for such weird things to happen right under the noses without being noticed.

 

Generally, the Swiss, who elect the Government, choose to remain quiet and do not have the feeling of guilt that some men and women in their society had been robbed of their child hood. They had been subjected to sexual abuses and child labor.