When all the Natives, come marching in …

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THIS will be an eventful month for Kuching. There appears to be no end to festivals of one kind or another. Yesterday, it was the Kuching City Day, and at the end of the month, National Day.

I’m not complaining. We Malaysians love partying, don’t we? We celebrate when we are happy. But do spare a thought for the less fortunate in our midst.

All this week, more visitors will swamp our state: professional musicians from many parts of the world will converge on the Sarawak Cultural Village at Santubong, the weavers and carvers and beaders will spread their wares at the Rainforest World Crafts Bazaar, and those celebrating World Indigenous Peoples Network Day will start arriving from the peninsula, Sabah and from other districts in Sarawak.

The foreign and local musicians will conduct their workshops with noisy guitars and drums and, they’ll browse and shop among the lovely crafts, and on the final night the audience in their thousands will be stomping their feet in front of the open air stage. Just hope it will not rain that evening. Watch out, boom and sound from the electronic bands may have the effect of pulling the venerable mountain down.

In the city’s suburbs at Jalan Ong Tiang Swee, some 400 members of the Jaringan Orang Asal Se-Malaysia (Joas) and guests from NGOs in the neighbouring countries will dance to their own beat during a workshop at the Dayak Bidayuh National Association Building. Their main performance during the celebrations will take the form of brainstorming on issues affecting their survival in this country. As minority groups, vulnerable and disadvantaged, they will be discussing the impacts of modern development on their lands, resources, cultures and security.

As many of their leaders are vocal in terms of articulating the interests of their respective groups, there will be sound and fury too, but those will not bring down the roof of the venue of the seminar. They are seasoned debaters at international forums – deliberating on the various current challenges facing the indigenous communities and working out strategies by which to handle those challenges in a positive manner.

There will be discussion on the progress of the adoption by the country of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (UNDrip) over their lands and resources since the General Assembly proclaimed them in 2007 and the role of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) in helping the local indigenous groups fight for their rights. This promises to be a hot subject.

It will not be all work and no play, though. They will have fun singing their own songs and dancing their own dances. Members of the public will be able to watch  performers from Sabah, from the Orang Asli and from our local artistes, for free. There will be all kinds of traditional food for those who wish to try them but these will not be free. There will be a launch of books on children while the youth among them will be competing in traditional games against the hosts.

While the young will be having fun, the elders will meet to discuss the next venue for the celebrations,  a tussle between Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. The vote from Sarawak as represented by Sadia will be crucial.

The elders will observe a one-minute silence in remembrance of the sacrifices of the land rights activists who have passed away. They will remember and pray for the repose of the souls of Cikgu Jackson Bagat of Melikin, Limi Kumoi of Paun Gahat, Anthony Ivanhoe Belon of Pantu, and Kelesau Naan of Baram.

Kelesau’s death remains a mystery to this day. On Oct 23, 2007, this Penan chief suddenly disappeared in jungle of which he knew like the palm of his hand.  Despite an intensive search with tracker dogs by many people of Long Kerong, there was not a trace of him. But two months later in the same search locality, human remains were neatly placed on a rock which the first search could impossibly have missed. These remains were those of Kelesau all right. But how did he die and how was it that no one found his remains on the rock on the first round of search until two months later?

His son Nick reported his father’s death at the Marudi police station. No one has said anything about the outcome of that report ever since.

Kelesau was one of the leaders who had put up road blockades along timber roads in the Baram in the 1980s. Was he murdered for defending his rights over land? Some day this mystery will be solved. May be at the next PHOAS celebration we will know how Kelesau met his mysterious death.

The seminar participants will also be remembering the lives of other indigenous peoples in this part of the world who have died in the course of defending their rights over land and over language: activists such as Bere Siga, famous for protecting community forests against illegal logging in Timor Leste; Manabendra Narayan Larma of the Jumma people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh for his part (1964) in championing the cause of ethnic groups who lost ancestral farmlands to the electricity dams across the Karnafully River; Werina Mananta, a woman activist in Dongi village in Central Sulawesi, who fought a nickel mining company which used her land for a golf course without adequate  compensation; Nirmal Mai and Narayan Dll of Nepal, both from the Sunuwar ethnic community in Nepal, for contributing to the conservation of a lake – Mai Pokhari, into a spiritual site; Gilbert Paborada of the Lumads of Mindanao, Philippines, who died defending his land taken by an oil palm company.

All of them are considered heroes and heroines and martyrs by the Indigenous peoples in Asia. To the list I would add Eddie Mabo of Australia. Every year members of the Joas pray for peace for the souls of these activists departed and draw inspiration from their contributions to their communities in terms of protecting land and cultural rights and for the survival of the entire  Indigenous peoples everywhere. Worldwide, there are some 370 million of them, two thirds of whom are in Asia.

To all the visitors, welcome to the Land of the Hornbills.

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