Perak Pakatan warns street protest over rare earth deal
By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
MENGLEMBU, April 29 — Perak Pakatan Rakyat today threatened to take to the streets if the state government fails to rescind its agreement allowing Hong Kong’s CVM Minerals Ltd to explore rare earth mining possibilities in Bukit Merah.
As a prelude, several PR lawmakers gathered at a market here this morning along with a group of residents and staged a mini-protest against the impending project.
Pasir Pinji assemblyman Thomas Su told The Malaysian Insider later that Bukit Merah folk were still sore over the deaths blamed on the country’s first rare earths plant.
Bukit Merah was the site of Malaysia’s last rare earths plant 20 years ago, which is still undergoing a massive RM300 million clean-up. The Japanese-owned Mitsubishi Chemical’s Asian Rare Earth (ARE) plant has been linked to eight cases of leukaemia, seven resulting in death.
News of the government’s latest bid for a similar initiative, said Su, had triggered a fresh wave of dissent from residents here.
“We want the government to stop the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with CVM Minerals immediately.
“If (Datuk Seri) Zambry (Kadir) fails, we will mobilise the people of Bukit Merah, of Perak and Malaysia to protest and demand a stop to the project,” he said when contacted.
Su said interviews with Bukit Merah residents this morning had confirmed that many were against any rare earth mining project in the area, fearing a repeat of the last rare earth factory disaster in 1992.
He added that although Zambry had pleaded ignorance in the matter, as the chairman of the Perak State Development Corporation (PSDC), the state investment arm that signed the MoU with CVM Minerals, the mentri besar would have the power to rescind the agreement.
“Do not wait for six months until it expires. That would just be an excuse. The people do not want any such plant here,” he said.
Ipoh Barat MP M. Kulasegaran, who was also at the protest, questioned the conflicting statements issued by Perak government leaders on the matter.
He said it was “shocking” that Zambry, as the PSDC chairman, was unaware of the MoU between the agency and CVM Minerals.
“How could the mentri besar who also chairs PSDC be totally in the dark about such an agreement?
“How many more ‘low-level agreements’ are there that he is not aware of?” he said, referring to senior state executive councillor Datuk Hamidah Osman’s description of the MoU.
Kulasegaran, who is also DAP national deputy chairman, added that Zambry, upon being informed of the MoU, should have given his immediate assurance that the government would not approve any rare earth plant in Perak.
“Why should it be Hamidah who declared that the government would not issue any permit?” he said.
Kulasegaran also urged Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon, MCA’s sole representative in Perak, to clarify his statement suggesting that there was a possibility that such a project be given the green light.
