Dam battle in remote Sarawak constituency
“Use your vote to pick a party that will respect your native land rights”
Leonard Lim, Straits Times
THE words “Stop Baram Dam, Save Our River” are painted in black across the rear of Mr Roland Engan’s beige four-wheel- drive vehicle.
It sums up the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) candidate’s message to voters as he traverses this vast and remote federal seat in north-east Sarawak.
A government proposal in 2008 to build a hydro-electric dam across the Baram River will submerge some 25 villages. More than 20,000 non-Muslim bumiputeras, known collectively as Dayaks in Sarawak, would be displaced from the land they have cultivated and lived on for decades.
The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) says the dam will generate cheap electricity to attract foreign industry, which in turn will create new jobs, towns, roads and a better life.
But for the Dayaks – who have long resented the leasing of native land to logging and oil palm firms by the state – the dam is the latest in a long list of grievances. Their growing resistance makes Baram a battle to watch.
“Use your vote to pick a party that will respect your native land rights,” Mr Engan, 39, tells residents during rallies at their longhouses.
The lawyer, whose childhood village Long Je’eh is among those which could be inundated by the dam, tells voters the pace of development in their backyard could be much faster if not for graft.
“We don’t need a dam,” he adds. “We need better roads.”
Travelling around in Baram, which is the size of Pahang but has just 29,500 voters, remains difficult.
Many villages are hours away from the nearest highway and are linked by narrow gravel tracks.
This gives the better-funded BN, which can afford to hire helicopters – said to cost about RM6,000 (S$2,400) an hour – an advantage in campaigning.
As for Mr Engan, he keeps a portable stove in his vehicle to cook instant noodles while on the campaign trail.
