Bruno Manser Fonds
Heuberg 25
4051 Basel
Schweiz
Tel. +41 61 261 94 74
Fax +41 61 261 94 73
Aktualisierung 2002-06-10
Bruno-Manser-Fonds
Verein für die Völker des Regenwaldes
Press-Release June 10th, 2002
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir on a working visit to Switzerland
„Please tell Dr. Mahathir that people are poisoning our rivers and many of us have fallen ill.„ Penan nomad Selai Sega, Limbang River, Sarawak/Malaysia, April 2002
The Bruno-Manser-Fonds as well as Bruno's relatives have used the official working visit to pass two appeal-letters to the Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad. The letters of appeal were delivered by Swiss federal minister for foreign affairs Mr Joseph Deiss.
Brunos brother Erich Manser thanked Dr. Mahathir for the efforts undertaken by the Malaysian authorities in order to bring clearance into the still unknown fate of Bruno Manser. Furthermore, Bruno's relatives asked for Bruno's diaries to be returned ( drawings and observations of the daily life among the Penan). Two months ago, the authorities sent back to Switzerland 2 boxes with Bruno's jungle-equipment, that was confiscated on the occasion of his arrest in 1986. Among the returned materials there was rice, salt, John Lennon-glasses and a fishing-net &endash; but unfortunately not the diaries with the artistic sketches and valuable notes, that Bruno started to elaborate in his youth.
The BMF turned to Malaysia's long-term Prime-Minister Dr. Mahathir in the name of the Penan and other indigenous peoples of Sarawak and Malaysia. Continuously the BMF receives desperate calls for help from the Penan, whose living spaces are depleted by logging and plantation companies.
Since March 2002 at least 6 road-blockades had to be conducted by the semi-settled and nomadic Penan communities against a variety of timber companies. Such peaceful blockades are a last resort of the increasingly marginalized last hunter &endash; gatherers of Borneo, whose traditional livingground, the oldest rainforest of the world (160 million years!) has been widely depleted in the last 30 years.
The Penan have already asked for help in countless appeal-letters and letters of complaint &endash; with no results at all.
Desperation, hunger, poverty and illness are more serious today than ever before in the history of the Penan. Together with the Penan we beseech Dr. Mahathir, to finally resolve this problem with human dignity, to respect the human rights (like access to clean drinking water) and to respect the traditional customary rights and the culture of the indigenous peoples!
The Penan are not against development in general &endash; but they don't want to give up their right for self-determination nor their traditional land- and customary rights. In the words of Ajang Kiew, headman of Long Sayan: „We asked for forest reserves. We asked them not to disturb the land surrounding our longhouses. We asked for school for the villages, so our children could go to school... We asked for clinics... Instead they gave us the logging companies. ... Now it is oil palm plantations.„
It is our hope that the legal demands of the indigenous peoples of Sarawak and Malaysia are also of value to the Swiss government, and that the Swiss-Malaysian relations are not limited just to the positive trade-balance (a plus for Switzerland of 312 Mio Swiss Franks annually).
Link to: borneo-project-site