BINTULU: Those responsible for damaging Bakun Highway in Sg Asap Belaga should be made to pay for their despicable act.
REPAIR OUR ROAD: Dr Elli (front - sixth left) with several demonstrators staging a protest in front of a heavy-laden logging truck.
Bakun Community Safety Committee (BCSC) chairman Dr Elli Luhat said they must repair the damaged road as what they had done was tantamount to destroying what the government had done for them, and a waste of government money and fund.
“We give them two weeks to repair the road and this is just the beginning of our action and battle. There will be more after this and we will fight because we don’t have anything here and we will do what we can,” he said yesterday.
More than 100 people staged a massive demonstration against the irresponsible act, which Dr Elli called vandalism of public properties.
The affected area was at the Bakun Resettlement Centre in Sg Asap/ Koyan Belaga.
Several logging and heavy-laden lorries were forced to stop during the peaceful demonstration, led by Dr Elli, with several banners bearing messages crying foul over the action of timber companies for using the public road for their own interest, causing damage, huge losses and suffering to the people.
According to Dr Elli, the demonstration was not an act against the government but was meant to help the government solve the problem which had been going on for the past 10 years.
He thanked the government for building the road, which BCSC wanted to protect against destruction for the benefit of the community as it was their only means of transportation to Bakun.
“If this situation goes on, the people will suffer more and this is our concern here,” Dr Elli stressed, lamenting the predicament of the Bakun community who had sacrificed for the nation and lost their heritage to make way for Bakun Dam.
He thus appealed to the authorities to take immediate actions to solve the problem and ease the plight of the people there, while pointing out that the people resorted to using an alternative and dangerous road, resulting in numerous fatalities.
To drive home his point, he said that he had briefed several political leaders including Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on the critical problem before the Sibu parliamentary by-election.
“He (Najib) called me to see him, so that’s why I dare, I want to help him, help the government and in line with the 1Malaysia concept we don’t want to be treated differently in a double standard way,” he added.
He said they were looking forward for the road to be repaired within two weeks as Christmas was coming and to avoid the problem becoming an issue during the state election.
Belahang Utu, 60, from Rh Daro, Sg Asap Belaga who used to travel to Bintulu every week via the Bakun Highway was saddened by the deplorable road condition which had brought fatalities to its users.
On the other hand, a van driver Asang Silek, 48, of Rh Belor said the development projects brought to Sg Asap never benefited the Belaga community as in reality the projects had caused them trouble and inconvenience, referring to damage done by the timber industry there.
Farmer Alex Boo, 45, from Rg Juman feared for the worst if there were to be an emergency case.
“Usually we just took about two hours drive to Bintulu but with this kind of road it took us more than three hours and my car also used to break down in the middle of the road,” he added, citing a hypothetical situation that a woman in labour would not reach the hospital in time to deliver or a sick person might die half-way.
Simut Lagang, 66, of Umh Balui, Liko suggested that the government work out a solution with timber companies operating in Belaga, adding that the companies should be responsible since they had been using the road for many years even though they had their own logging road.
“If they still want to use the highway they must work together with the government by maintaining it for the safety of other road users,” he said.