Malaysia:
conflict caused by Bakun dam continues in Sarawak
The Bakun Hydroelectric Dam Project has aroused widespread
concern among environmental and social NGOs and indigenous peoples' organizations in
Sarawak, which have been opposing this megaproject considered unnecessary -since the
present and future energy demand of the country are adequately covered with the
electricity produced nowadays- and negative from an environmental and social point of view
because one third of Sarawak's remaining primary forest lie in the area to be affected by
the dam, thus forcing the migration of indigenous peoples from the catchment area. In May
1997 the Coalition of Concerned NGOs on Bakun (Gabungan) urged ABB, the main contractor
involved in the project, to definitively abandon the project (see WRM Bulletin 2). In
February 1998 the Bakun Region People's Committee (BRPC) urges the State government and
the Bakun Resettlement Committee (BRC) to shelve the resettlement of the Bakun residents
which is tentatively set for July that year (see WRM Bulletin 9).
In spite of these severe objections and the reduction of the
scale of the originally planned dam, the project's implementation went on and the
denounced problems persist. On June 10^th Gabungan delivered the following press
statement on this conflictive issue:
"On Reviving the Bakun Project
The announcement by the Prime Minister (June that the
Bakun dam will be scaled down to around 500 MW capacity, raises some vital questions:
1. With a downsized dam, why does the Sarawak government
still want to resettle 10,000 indigenous peoples?
Initially, the Bakun dam was supposed to have a capacity of
2,400 MW and the size of the flooded area required the displacement of 10,000 indigenous
peoples in 15 long houses. Now that the dam has been downsized, why should the same number
of people be displaced? One would have thought that, if the Sarawak Government had
followed the recommendations of its consultants in the Bakun Hydroelectric Project, the
resettlement would have been put off as long as possible until just before the reservoir
is flooded. Furthermore, now that the dam has been scaled down, that there is no longer a
need to displace that many people.
What has been happening, from the study by the Fact Finding
Mission sent by the Coalition of Concerned NGOs, is that the Sarawak authorities are
rushing the resettlement. They want "Operation Exodus" to be completed by August
1999. Apart from the reason above, the Asap Resettlement Scheme is a gigantic failure in
planning, the most serious problems being:
- There are no employment opportunities in Asap. The one oil
palm company has just planted their seedlings, so the people will have to wait five years
before the trees mature for harvesting. This is assuming plantation wage labour is
suitable for the Bakun indigenous people, who have thrived on swidden farming, forest
products in their traditional long house communities for centuries. The land they have
been given (3 acres) is not what they had been promised (3 hectares) and certainly not
enough to work on by each household, never mind their future generations.
- The house units at the Asap Resettlement Scheme -small,
cheap wood, shoddy work and priced at RM52,000- would be considered daylight robbery by
West Malaysians. Despite the fact that this is the biggest resettlement scheme of
indigenous peoples, the scandal is that it has still not been given a Certificate of
Fitness by the Kapit Majlis. The reason given is that there are defects in the design of
the houses and facilities around the long houses there.
The full report of the Fact Finding Mission to Bakun will be
released by the end of June 1999 and submitted to the federal and state governments.
2. Dams cannot be considered renewable
Hydroelectric dams, together with nuclear and coal-fired
power stations cannot be considered "renewable". The world-wide experience with
hydroelectric dams have shown that they are environmentally destructive and have a fixed
life, after which they need to be decommissioned at great cost. That is why the World Bank
does not finance hydroelectric dams anymore. Our hydroelectric dams in the Cameron
Highlands are a poor advertisement. The Chenderoh Dam has had to be upgraded and new
machines installed.
3. Alternatives to the Bakum Dam
Like the response to our water crisis, we have yet to see the
Government implement energy saving measures and ensuring our power stations operate at
full efficiency. Other countries which have done this have managed to reduce the
consumption of fuel oils and the cost of generation almost a decade after the
mid-seventies by energy saving alone! Our own Energy Minister has said that the industrial
sector can save up to RM685 million in energy cost a year if it implements energy-saving
measures.
We have pointed out that the country has to have an
energy-needs inventory, not just electricity consumption projections. This means the
collection of reliable data on types of energy produceable and the varying amounts used in
the country, both domestic and industrial; optimising the match between energy sources and
uses to avoid wastage, and tapping more renewable sources.
The country has not been given a total picture of our
options. For example, we have been told that the Bakun project will be saving on
consumption of our own gas supply, but the public has not been informed that we have been
wantonly selling gas to Japan and other countries anyway all these years!
If we need hydroelectric dams at all, these should be very
small dams built in situ to supply power to long houses and local industries without the
need to displace any indigenous peoples.
4. Why do we want toxic and energy-hungry industries such as
aluminium smelters?
The earliest justification for the Bakun dam during the
Eighties was the need for energy to fuel an aluminium smelter in Bintulu. Aluminium
smelting is one industry that the developed countries want to dump on gullible people like
us because it is environmentally toxic and consumes voracious amounts of energy. It is
unbelievable that after all these years, when we are supposed to be more environmentally
conscious and wary of foreign countries dumping their toxic industries on South countries,
the aluminium smelter is again proposed! Who will gain from this investment?
5. The right of information.
The Government must be transparent about the cost of the
project, the tenders for the contracts, etc. Furthermore, the public has the right to know
why Ekran Berhad and Bakun Hydroelectric Corporation will receive a scandalous RM 950
million for compensation. So far we have not been able to gauge such specific information.
The Bakun dam project has been wrapped in controversy from the beginning because of
secrecy over these details. We hope that this will change for the Malaysian people are
entitled to information which affect their lives and taxes.
Released by:
Dr. Kua Kia Soong
On behalf of Coalition of Concerned NGOs on Bakun"
Source: WRM's bulletin Nº
24, June 1999