by Wick Pancoast
The Borneo Project
A young Kayan man named Jok paused as he made another trip up the steep riverbank to the village. The tropical morning air was loud with cicadas, and sweat rolled down his forehead. A steady stream of men, women, and children moving all types of possessions - chickens, floor mats, cooking gear, clothes, memorabilia, and bedding - made their way down the uneven steps to the longboats tied at the shore of the muddy Balui river below. Jok caught his breath, weary from the heavy load.
At his father's request, Jok had returned to his village, Batu Kelau, to help his family move. Jok's family and 20 others were leaving the farms and forests of their ancestors for a new life in a government resettlement town six hours away.
Villagers of Batu Kelau, along with nearly 10,000 people from sixteen Kayan and Kenyah villages in the Balui rivershed, are making way for a huge dam that may never be built. The Bakun Dam is a $4.6 billion hydroelectric project designed to flood an area the size of Singapore and generate 2,500 megawatts of power. Initial construction work on the project ground to a halt in early 1998 due to the Asian economic crisis and an inability to generate financial support.
Despite the dam's uncertain future, the government is proceeding with a relocation exercise that began last September. One group of affected residents calling themselves the Bakun Region People's Committee declared the evictions "unjustified, unnecessary, untimely, and shortsighted." With the dam on hold indefinitely, it is unclear why the evictions continue. There has been much speculation: perhaps it is bureaucratic inertia, or emptying the land for industrial logging, or to force the villagers into areas where the government could manage them better. Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, the relocation process has generated distrust, split families, and left most longhouse communities divided among themselves.
On the riverbank, Jok explained that this is a particularly tumultuous time for the people of Batu Kelau. "Most of them, especially the older ones, have little if any formal education. They know no other existence than the one they live here in the forest. Time will tell if this relocation program will be successful. Right now I don't think most of my people know what they are about to face." Jok, like many young people from the longhouses, has lived much of his life outside his home village, attending school and working in downstream towns. Thus he has a good idea what life will be like in the government resettlement town called Asap.
In Asap the government has built clinics, schools and roads - attractive incentives. Yet, as Jok points out, "These things cost money. Longhouse people have never had to rely on money to buy food before, let alone water and electricity." The government hopes to bring about a change of lifestyles, making people rely on jobs in the modern cash economy rather than largely subsisting on the products of the rainforest. But this switch might not only destroy traditional cultures; it could also be a disaster financially. Jok continues, "These villagers have never had to make payments on a house before. They don't have experience managing money and this is a skill that requires training. Right now they have some money in their pockets from the initial compensation payments. What happens when that is gone? They are told that jobs will be available at a nearby oil palm plantation, but this project has not yet started."
Many residents are doubtful that life in Asap will be an improvement over their ancestral way. An elder woman with distended earlobes drooping on her shoulders explained that she would join her family to make sure they arrive safely at their new homes in Asap. She is curious to see the resettlement village. Yet like many others, she is leaving open the option to return to her longhouse. Others will most likely drift to the coastal towns in search of jobs if Asap proves unworkable.
Batu Bagi, the staunch headman of Batu Kelau, explained his concerns: "We are promised three acres of land for farming, but that is not enough to feed my family. There is no fishing in Asap. There is no hunting in Asap. People are proud that they have iceboxes in Asap. But what good is an empty icebox? Here, with fish in the river and animals and plants in the forest, we are rich. We can always find food."
In order to sway the minds of longhouse residents opposed to relocation, the government established an organization called the Bakun Resettlement Committee (BRC). Five members of the BRC stayed at the village of Batu Kelau during the eviction, encouraging people to move. They explained that residents choosing not to move would no longer have access to schools or clinics and would forfeit the remaining 70 percent of compensation owed to them by the government. Half the families of Batu Kelau still refuse to move.
Most agree that the system for determining compensation has exacerbated tensions in the communities. According to local NGOs, it has been politically motivated, divisive and corrupt. Compensation packages, based on the "value" of an individual's farm holdings, need to be verified by the government's Land and Survey Department, not with village leadership. Many villagers complain that those receiving the largest sums often live in downstream towns and are friends with the government surveyors. Farmers who have been honest about the size of their individual croplands have generally received much less.
Many of those evicted have also complained about the fact that they must pay for housing in the new settlements. Each residence costs RM52,000 (US$13,700), and families are expected to begin payments after a five-year grace period. For residents with smaller farm holdings, the cost of housing actually exceeds the amount they will receive in compensation. Their new life in Asap will begin in debt to the government.
More than 20 percent of the residents from the Balui rivershed are refusing to move. They have justified concerns that mega-projects like the Bakun Dam are intended to benefit a handful of investors, developers, politicians, and contractors who live far from the interior rainforests of Sarawak. These people and the headlines they control will continue to point to the few fortunate individuals who find decent jobs with the companies and say, "Natives enjoy the benefits of development."
What won't be mentioned in the media is the vast majority of people who must adapt to a new lifestyle that is as foreign to them as a rainforest is to most westerners. What will not be discussed are the large tracts of forests, once home to nearly 10,000 people, that are being opened up to industrial logging. What will not be discussed is the cultural devastation that results when indigenous people are removed from their ancestral lands and histories.
Jok stood and watched as two more longboats heavy with people and their possessions pulled away slowly into the current. Drivers pointed bows downstream and took up the throttles of 40-horsepower engines. None of the passengers turned to look back as the roar and the boats and the lives disappeared around the corner.
Wick Pancoast is a director of the Borneo Project, a project of Earth Island Institute.
Bakun Dam: the phantom menace