A crime against Tania’s humanity

Keruah Usit | Apr 29, 09 10:08am @ MalaysiaKini

Tania was in Form Four when she first visited a timber camp. She was a lively girl of 15, well-liked among her schoolmates. Like all her friends, Tania enjoyed swimming, playing netball and making fun of boys in her small rural school in Sarawak. Like many teenage girls, she was impatient to grow up, see the world, meet the man of her dreams and start a family of her own.

At the end of one school term, four years ago, when all the children were returning to their far-flung villages, Tania was picked up by a 4×4 truck.

A large timber company, which was operating a concession in her village’s area, owned the truck. The driver should have sent Tania back home, three hours’ drive by logging track. Instead, the driver took her to one of the timber camps about an hour’s drive of her school.

Almost all of Tania’s schoolmates were boarders at their remote secondary school. The students’ villages were spread out far and wide – a day’s walk, or even further, from the school. To get home for a term break, or go back to school, they climbed into three-tonne monster logging trucks, or they squeezed like blue-and-white livestock, into the open back of a 4×4 logging vehicle.

Condolences to Sarawak Chief Minister & his family

Hornbill Unleashed would like to extend our condolences to the Sarawak Chief Minister and his family on the demise of his wife/mothers/mothers-in-law at around 4pm today in her official residence.

Lejla Taib, or more popularly known as Laila Taib was from Polish family background who migrated to Australia. Laila and Taib had just celebrated their golden jubilee wedding anniversary on 13 January 2009.

She was 68 years old.

Special Announcement

By

Sim Kwang Yang and friends

It is the general policy of Hornbill Unleashed to have at least one posting every day. But in respect of the passing of Datin Laila Taib, the wife of the Sarawak CM Datuk Taib, we will keep silent for one day to-day.

We will resume posting on 1-05-2009.

Why do we blog?

By Sim Kwang Yang 

A piece posted by a writer by the name of “a pensioner” in Dayak Baru has this to say about why people blog.

“Blogging is nothing, other than a hobby & perhaps therapy for some. Blogs are meant for pensioners who have nowhere to spend their remaining valuable time. In short bloggers are those who have nothing better to do. They hope (only hope) to help shape public opinion, but as proven in Batang Ai…voters has no respect for bloggers. Not only the voters shy away, they don’t trust bloggers for they tell only half-baked truth.

“Misperception…bloggers seemed to think too highly of themselves, not knowing they are disgruntle lots.”

I am quite sure there are many bloggers who do blog as a hobby, for nothing better to do, in their young or old age. But the constrictive view expressed above is a little unfair to all bloggers in Malaysia.

In his latest posting on Malaysia Today entitled Sun Tze and the art of war, Raja Petra Kamarudin wrote this about the power of the internet:

“Yes, in 1998, when we first started using the Internet to fight Barisan Nasional, there were only 280,000

International Shame

Ill-treatments of Penan attract global attention

The longer the government keeps a lid on the task force findings report commissioned by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development to investigate into the allegations of Penan women been sexually abused by loggers operating on their land, the more attention and criticisms it will draw from the international communities. Survival International, a renowned UK-based international organization supporting tribal peoples worldwide through education, advocacy and campaigns, released this statement Government urged to release findings on sexual abuse of Penan women on their website most recently.

Survival International campaigner Miriam Ross who returned to London earlier this month from a trip to the Borneo rainforests in Sarawak to investigate the plight of the Penan tribe and to find out about their struggle for survival, have spoken to Ruth Walker of Scotland on Sunday and Frances Tamburin of The Guardian Weekly.

Dear PM, when will you be serious about corruption?

William’s Pick of the Blog 

Transportation – Silly PR Stunt and PKFZ Scandal Revisit is an interesting pick of Malaysia Today’s “From around the Blogs”.  

It is quite amazing really. Why is the new PM quiet about weeding corruption in his new administration? Perfecting his guru’s approach of avoiding dodging and evading the corruption endemic, that “corruption is part of our Malaysian culture, deep-rooted in our Malaysian way of life”. 

Hence, the front page lead story in The Edge “Total PKFZ bill RM8 billion” must be a rude by timely reminder to the new PM enjoying and bathing in the hype of his PMship honeymoon.  

Stocktube had this 21 August 2007 interesting critique Malaysian Biggest Scandal – Business as Usual  as background understanding of the matter. 

Indeed, the alleged PKFZ scandal will not just go away easily, as the new PM may have wished.  

The controversy has also basked the Sarawak shore as a Sarawakian MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has brought a defamation suit in the Kuching High Court against Oriental Daily News and See Hua Daily News, their editors, publishers and distributors for an article first published in Chinese in Oriental Daily News, entitled “Anwar claimed he possessed evidence: ‘Port Klang Free Trade Zone project has people involved in corruption’”. Anwar is now brought into the suit as a Third Party. Another courtroom drama in Sarawak that everyone is eagerly anticipating. 

Responding to The Edge article, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat denied blocking the release of an investigation report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers into the scandal-plagued Port Klang Free Zone, saying it is still classified and he threatened to sue a business weekly for its reporting.

While it gets more interesting by the day, the alleged PKFZ scandal is certainly a stern test to Najib’s new administration.

Release report on rape of Penan women now

” MINISTRY REPORTS OF THE ALLEGATIONS OF THE PENAN RAPE BY TIMBER LOGGERS IS STILL IN THE OVEN ?”

WHEN CAN THE REPORT BE SERVED ON THE TABLE ?

By Apang, Zhang M. L. & Voon

The story started …

The Penan and other indigenous peoples of Sarawak have been struggling publicly for land rights over two decades now. Without these rights being respected and protected, communities have either lost or continue to lose their lands to timber companies, mono-crop plantations and other supposed development projects.

Along with such model of development come workers, from outside mostly, who suddenly live nearby the indigenous communities. With mostly male workers, it wasn’t long that rape and sexual abuses occurred.

The first known case was a document by a NGO Fact-Finding mission which began in 1995 and followed up in 1996. The final report, published in 2000, and accessible online at documented, among others, the rape of a minor Penan girl in Long Mobui in Upper Baram River in the Miri Division. Two police reports were subsequently lodged. However, there is no known follow-up action from the police to date.

The latest cases that came to light was when the Switzerland-based NGO, the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) broke the news in early October 2008. When the mainstream Malaysian media published the story with details after a visit to several Middle Baram Penan communities, the nation was awakened to the rape and sexual abuse of vulnerable Penan girls.

Uncertain journey in life

By Sim Kwang Yang

Faithful readers of my writing on the Internet will know that I usually keep my personal life pretty private. I am indeed a private person by nature, and those two decades in politics really injured my soul.

When you are in the public gaze all the time, posturing as a friend to one and all no matter how unsavory they are, many people will accept you as their bosom friend. But I know very few people really know what I am like in private.

A few friends have asked me to write an auto-biography. I have always turned them down. My life is not worth a book, at the expense of those poor trees. Besides, I truly believe nobody can write a fair auto-biography. Selective and biased memory will be at work, and the ego will project forward like a phallus.

Finding Our Own Way

By Pak Bui

Any future, enlightened Sarawak Chief Minister will have to crack his or her head for a workable blueprint for Sarawak’s economy, after the wrecking job done over the past three decades. Most discussions on Sarawak’s economic future boil down to following a richer country’s model, notably Singapore and China.

We are reminded that China has produced GDP growth of greater than 7% every year since official figures were released in 1992. In 2009, during the most painful recession in memory for every other major economy, China’s massive economy is still expected to grow, albeit at a slower rate. The latest quarterly figure shows impressive GDP growth of 6.1% for China, even if this is the lowest since official records began. However, before we are carried away by annual growth rates, it is worth bearing in mind that China’s GDP growth began from a low per capita baseline in 1992 – the only way was up, in fact. Even now, the per capita income in China is lower than in many developing nations, despite impressive growth statistics.

To 3-in-1 Minister, ‘go eat cake!’

Sim Kwang Yang @ MalaysiaKini

Recently, the new Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim hosted a dinner for 50 ‘prominent’ socio-political bloggers at a local restaurant in a move to engage the New Media.

Raja Petra Kamaruddin and his gang of Barisan Rakyat bloggers were not invited; to ask the reason why would be stupid of me.

This is the same 3-in-1 Minister who not long ago warned bloggers “not to twist the truth or face the music”. It was a naked threat for bloggers to toe the line or face the full force of the law, no matter how unjust the laws are in the repression of our right to free speech.

Sky’s Articles

Collections of  Sim Kwang Yang’s Articles in The Cyberspace

To 3-in-1 Minister, ‘go eat cake!’ @ MalaysiaKini

Application to review Minister’s decision dismissed

But no order as to costs

By Ken Hu

An application for judicial review brought by two bank employees, with full backing of the Sarawak Bank Employees’ Union and the Malaysian Trade Union Congress Sarawak Division, to crush an exemption order made by the then Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Fong Chan Onn in 2005, was dismissed by the Kuching High Court this morning.

However, the Judicial commissioner who heard the case said that the court cannot condone the fact that the Minister had given no reason for exercising his discretion the way he had and resulted in this application. “We don’t want to give others the misconception that this is an authoritarian or dictatorial government,” the JC Dr Hamid Sultan Abu Baker cited the decision of then Acting Chief Justice Raja Azlan Shah (as His Highness then was) in the Sri Lempah Enterprise Case. He therefore ordered that there be no order as to costs.

This Application was brought after the Minister had decided to exercise his discretion to make an exemption order to take effect on the same day the new Sarawak Labour Ordinance was to take effect on 1st October 2005, applicable to ‘all non-manual, executive and managerial employees whose wages are between RM2001 and RM2500′ the effect of which allows an exemption of this class of workers from the provisions of sections 104, 105, 105A and 105C of the Ordinance which provide for better benefits and

Letter from America : A tale of two towns

By Bunga Pakma

Everybody I know-and that includes a friend in his 90s-thought that last year’s US presidential race was the most stimulating and entertaining as well as perhaps the most important campaign they had witnessed in their lives. I myself was moved to educate myself about America, and the first thing I did was to order and read Alexis de Tocqueville‘s Democracy in America.

Have you ever read a book and found yourself astonished that you agree with everything the author says, and then wondering whether something is wrong with him? Or wrong with you? Nobody is right all the time. That’s what I felt on reading Tocqueville. But he is right all the time.

Alexis de Tocqueville was a young French lawyer whom his government sent to America in 1831 to report on the prison systems of the various states. Tocqueville was captivated by the US and wound up studying its laws, government, social structure, and culture. Tocqueville believed that irresistible forces were driving all nations to democracy, and he studied the US-then the world’s only broad-based democratic country-to understand democracy’s nature and predict its future.

A race against racism

By Sim Kwang Yang

All my co-writers on this communal blog seem preoccupied with their daily professional and extra-curricular chores, so I am compelled to hold the fort again. After all, I am retired and have all the time in the world, in my hermitage at the top of a hill in Cheras in Selangor, to read, write, eat, and sleep. It seems fair that I should contribute more. I hope not to bore you.

I am grateful for those visitors who have left their comments on this blog, making this a site for a different kind of political and philosophical conversation. Life in Malaysia can be lonely, and so the echoes from the cyber sphere are an affirmation of our common humanity.

The responses to my take on racism are few but enigmatic, which seems to suggest the respondents are deep in thought. God knows we need more people deep in thought like mad in this mad mad world!

There are many faces to racism in the world and in Malaysia. We can, and we ought to stimulate one another on this sensitive subject, responsibly, reasonably, critically, and courteously, just to prove that the Sedition Act is a stupid law, if nothing else.

Having lived all our lives in a country of racial politics, it is natural that we are the victims and perhaps the sometime perpetrators of racist language.

Many of my Chinese friends still like to refer to “Zi Sek Lang”, Kuching Hockien for people whose skin colours are of a different tone from the Chinese light brown.

Sarawak: My state, my government, my business

By Chee How

“Cahya Mata secures RM232m jobs from SEB“, the Financial Daily wrote last Thursday.

The news that was missed by all local and national dailies revealed:
“Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd’s (CMS) unit CMS Land Sdn Bhd has secured RM232 million worth of construction contracts from Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB) to develop and construct the latter’s proposed headquarters building at Isthmus in Kuching, Sarawak.

CMS Land, in turn, awarded the contract to design, develop, construct, complete and transfer the proposed building to Putrajaya Perdana Bhd’s (PPB) wholly owned unit, Putra Perdana Construction Sdn Bhd, for RM221 million.

CMS is a major shareholder of PPB via its 100%-owned Concordance Holdings Sdn Bhd.

Concordance holds a 28.3% stake in UBG Bhd and an indirect 51% stake in PPES Works (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd, which in aggregate holds more than 15% of UBG.

UBG in turn has a 85.9% direct interest in PPB.”

“Another mega project in CMS’ bag?” My well-informed friend Wong said with much disgust in his tone, “How true what Aziz Hussain had said that it is easier if you have personal contact with the Chief Minister.”

Clampdown on the alternative media?

By Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY)

Since that installation of a new PM and a new federal cabinet, I get the impression that the new administration is going to tighten their rein on the media even further.

A reporter from the net portal Merdeka Review was banned from the PM’s press conference upon his first days of taking office – without any reason given. Then the PM himself had a private pet-talk with the editors of some major media organisations, presumably cautioning them against “irresponsible reporting”.

A major media conglomerate also sent out a memo to their staff members never to mention the Attantuya case at all. News about her, like her bombed body, would disappear into thin air, at least in the mainstream media.

What is racism?

By Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY )

My fellow blogger Sarawak Headhunter had in recent days posted two very controversial entries.

First, he proclaimed that the PKR defeat at the Batang Ai by-election should have buried the skeletons of Dayakism in Sarawak forever. Then he declared war on racism, targeting an Utusan Malaysia headline calling on Malays to rise and be united. It is a pity that his ideas are not more widely discussed in Sarawak’s blogsphere.

UN conference on racism boycotted

Meanwhile, Australia and the Netherland joined the US, Canada, Italy, and Israel in boycotting a United Nations conference on racism in Geneva. The United States and Israel had walked out of a previous conference in South Africa, after Arab states sought to define Zionism as racism.

Towards A post-Taib Era in Sarawak?

By Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY )

Let me invite you on an imaginary journey into the future. What would Sarawak be like after our current Chief Minister Datuk Taib Mahmud is gone?

The question is not entirely irrelevant. Taib is 72 or 73 years old. He has had a bout of cancer. He may still outlive me, though I am only 61. You cannot tell about such things. One thing is certain: though Taib can be the CM of Sarawak for life, he cannot be CM forever.

Another thing is quite clear. He has no clear line of succession. So who can and will succeed him as the next Sarawak CM.

Sulaiman who?

People in Sarawak tell me that his son Sulaiman is being groomed to take over from him. The establishment of political dynasties is a norm in Malaysian politics.

My Recipe for Our Beloved Sarawak

By Pak Bui

I would like to share this home-cooked recipe in response to SKY’s posting “What would you do if you were the Sarawak Chief Minister?”

I am sure many of you have your own variations on this.

Ingredients:

1. One new Chief Minister (white hair discarded)

2. One new State Cabinet (fresh)

3. One large, new Police force (with shells and slime removed)

Former Court of Appeal Judge judges the judge

By Sim Kwang Yang

(Perak is embroiled in a constitutional crisis, not moving to the various courts.  Why are the verdicts so predictably against the Pakatan Rakyat and the Speaker of the Perak state assembly?  Is there another way of examining the judgement?  Justice N. H. Chan, former Appeal Court Judge judges the judge.  In case you have missed his judgement in Malaysian Insider, we reproduce his judgement below.  A must read for all lawyers and judges in Sarawak!  –  SKY)

A judge who does not appear to be fair is useless to the judicial process. As such he is a bad judge and is therefore unfit to sit on the bench.

By Justice N.H. Chan, former Court of Appeal Judge (The Malaysian Insider)

APRIL 16 – The story unfolds with the application of three turncoat members of the Perak Legislative Assembly for a declaration that Speaker V. Sivakumar’s order, which was made in the Legislative Assembly, that their seats in the Assembly have become vacant because they have resigned was illegal. Here is the report from theSun newspaper, Thursday, April 2, 2009:

IPOH: The High Court yesterday dismissed the application by Perak State Assembly Speaker V. Sivakumar to strike out an original summons brought by the three independent assemblymen, seeking a declaration that Sivakumar’s order to declare their assembly seats vacant was illegal.

Long live the king(makers)!

By Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY )@ MalaysiaKini

I have always thought of Muhyiddin Yassin as a reasonable, restrained and urbane Umno leader; in fact, he used to be one of my favourite cabinet ministers.

When he ascended to the exalted position of deputy prime minister, I was a touch worried that he might just be the new face and the new voice that Umno and BN need to regain the support of the voters who had swung en masse to the opposition coalition in the last general election.

My worry turned out to be both unfounded and unwarranted. Within a week of assuming the second highest office in the land, the public statement of the new DPM has shown that he is just like the past Umno and BN leading lights – arrogant, insensitive and quite removed from reality.

Artilcle Link :- http://www1.malaysiakini.com/news/102625

	Narrative aimed to spook non-Malays
	Horse trading involving Sabah, S’wak

An invitation to freedom

By Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY )

I was the top dog of the Sarawak DAP for a number of years. I was also an important member of the DAP CEC for many years. I attended many meetings, in which I liked to introduce new ideas.

Once, (I think it was in the 1990s), I proposed that we sold off the party building in PJ to raise RM one million for our Tanjong project to finance our campaign to take power in Penang. It was shot down after a prominent member of the CEC said, “What if every state DAP request RM one million to finance their state project.”

One day, I proposed that the CEC administration be computerised instead of relying on the old physical filing system. The Treasurer brought up many objections, saying we had no space, no trained personnel, and no money for computers. Naturally, he knew nothing about computers.

CHICKEN A LA CARTE – TRUE STORY

MP Sivarasa challenges Notice to bar him from entering Sarawak

Decision for leave for judicial review on May 15

By Ken Hu

The Kuching High Court I today heard the leave application by PKR vice-President and Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah for judicial review to quash decision of Immigration Director issuing a Notice of Refusal of Entry barring his entry to Sarawak on 14 February 2009.

In his application, Sivarasa also asked for an order of mandamus to compel the Sarawak Immigration Director to allow his entry into Sarawak.

The PKR vice-president, who was scheduled to conduct internal meetings for Sarawak PKR leaders in Kuching and Miri on that day, was stopped by immigration officials upon arriving at Kuching International Airport at about noontime on 14 February 2009 and was served with a notice of refusal of entry under Section 66(1) on the Immigration Act.

Shadow cabinet – a fulcrum for a two-party system

by  Sim Kwang Yang (SKY) @ MalaysiaKini

Last week, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim announced that the Pakatan Rakyat coalition would form a shadow cabinet in Parliament. The move is one year overdue, but it is better late than never.

The immediate reaction of the newly installed Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was that this was a “power grab”, and “designed to topple the government”.

The DPM’s knee jerk reaction is a left-over of the old political narrative in our country. Its implied ramification is that the opposition parties and their shadow cabinet are like terrorist entities trying to topple the legitimate government of the day.

	His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition
	Muat learn governing very quickly

Article Link : – Shadow cabinet – a fulcrum for a two-party system

What’s race got to do with it ….

By Apang

The world’s greatest rock grandma (to me at least), Tina Turner’s great hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It” is being borrowed here and applied to Malaysia, the Boleh Land (borrowing from RPK this time round) in general and Sarawak in specifics.

The current MIC and Bidayuh grumbling about being left out of the new Najib cabinet is another classic in Malaysia boleh-land.

The coming together as BN may had been dictated by historical events, i.e. winning support from the British for independence, but the “model” fundamentally has remained till today. The concept of racial representation has been cemented by successive BN component parties’ leaders. What this has done is to continue sending the message to Malaysians and outsiders alike that “the Ching can only be represented by the Chong”, the “Mali can only represent the Mutu”, the “Ali can only represent the Ahmad”, the “John Anak Sarawak can only represent the Dayaks” and the “Ketingan can only represent the Kadazan-Dusun etc”.

Oh yes, in racially divided Malaysia, I am sure to have missed out some, but damn it, I am also a victim of the encirclement of this divide-and-rule, still.

A product of Racial Politics in Malaysia

Allow me to put forward my own understanding of this situation, however much limited. First and foremost, the BN is made up of parties based on “distinct” racial backgrounds even though there are attempts to have exceptions – like the Indians in Gerakan and of course the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) having non-Malays from mostly Sabah while not to exclude the few Orang Asli. Here in Sarawak, the SUPP has been recreated to include few Dayaks to try to make it “not just a Chinese” party.

I was a product of the racism of Malaysian political creation.

What would you do if you are the Sarawak CM?

By Sim Kwang Yang

Recently, I posted an entry, wondering whether free universal health care would be possible or not for Sarawak, based on my Canadian experience.

One reader questioned whether Taib can be prevailed upon to implement this concept. Another wondered whether I was being too idealistic. Fortunately, a young Canadian undergraduate at my old alma mater the University of Winnipeg came to my rescue out of the blue and confirmed that universal free health care is indeed being implemented in Canada.

Apparently, my readers missed an important hypothetical assertion in my entry that day: “If I were the chief minister of Sarawak….”

The Internet is a wonderful tool, and the Sarawak blogs are our precious alternative media. The cyberspace there is the only refuge where I can seek reprieve from the deadening sterility of the Sarawak print media.
As I trawl through the political blogs in Sarawak every day, I am often moved by the bloggers’ expression of love and concern for our fair land and her people. That is the kind of love and concern that I share.

But something bothers me deeply in Sarawak’s cyber space.

There, we hear the cry of frustration and helplessness of our fellow Sarawakians,

The new Cabinet with the new PM

By  Sim Kwang Yang (SKY)

Finally, we have a new prime minister, a new federal cabinet, and a new administration. Though the media are going crazy with endless comments over this latest development, and friends have advised me to give them 100 day honeymoon before commenting on them, I just do not find the energy in me to get excited about the whole orgy of media frenzy.

Going by the radiance of the new PM’s face, he is still basking in the euphoria of his new found glamour. If I were him, I would be dead worried. Just imagine; he has inherited a government that has been denied a two-third majority in parliament. Four (or five) state governments are still in the hands of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. The BN has lost four by-elections since March 8 in 2008.

His BN partners, MCA, MIC, and Gerakan are reduced to the status of mosquito parties. The Malaysian economy is going down the drain, and people are losing jobs and income. The new PM has come into office with a low rating on approval. He is also tainted by the whiff of personal scandal, and even Kuli has asked him to come clean on the matter. His UMNO continue to be embroiled in internal intrigue, including the latest episode in Terengganu.

If Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is not careful, he may well be the last UMNO prime minister in Malaysia.

UMNO cabinet

Of the 28 new and old federal ministers, 19 are from UMNO.

Why Don’t the People of Sarawak Have a Better Cabinet?

By Pak Bui

Our Federal Cabinet has its fair share of deadbeats. Mukhriz Mahathir’s inclusion, for example, brings to mind the picture of a clumsy loser, only allowed to play mixed doubles for a school badminton team because his father knows the headmaster.

There is an email doing the rounds, setting out one explanation why Malaysia lost to Singapore in a dispute over a rock, Batu Puteh, in the Straits of Johor. The email listed out the many academic qualifications of Singaporean ministers (Masters degrees from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge) and comparing them with Malaysian ministers’ qualifications (Bachelor degrees from University Institut Teknologi Mara, Politeknik Ungku Omar, the University, ex-Polytechnic, of Staffordshire).

Academic degrees mean little in real life. And Singapore is a ridiculous, soulless hamster cage, not a democratic Athens we can look to for inspiration. But the list provides a little insight into our executive branch of government.

Why BN won in batang Ai?

(We posted an analysis on why BN won in the Batang Ai by-election. To day, we offer you a rebuttal by John – sky)

Dissecting symptoms from root causes – It is nothing natural to vote BN

By John

Andy’s singular focus on the end results of the Batang Ai by-election again shows how our society tends to reduce complex scenarios into manageable and recognizable entities. It is about simplicity, on the surface, when there are so much that we don’t know, never bother to find out, lie beneath the surface.

Call that human nature or the process of our societal conditioning but the end results cannot be the dictate of what is a continuing process. After all, there are more ways than one – through election – to show one’s displeasure towards the government.

Yes, the fact remains that BN MENANG with an increase majority.

Other factors at work

But other facts are important contributing factors.

The Dayak urban-rural divide

Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY ) @ The Nut Graph on April 10, 2009

THE loss of Jawah Gerang and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) in Batang Ai by a shocking majority of 1,854 votes has jolted many party members and supporters to the core. I hear that even on the morning of polling day on 7 April 2009, some of Jawah’s closest associates were still expecting a glorious victory for him.

Onlookers like me were less involved and can afford to be more objective. Something was amiss with Jawah’s campaign in the dying days of the battle. To be fair, the odds were so stacked against PKR that the party’s candidate, whoever he or she was, would not have made much difference.

But one critical question keeps pecking at the back of my mind: what happened to the much-touted groundswell of Dayak support for PKR in Sarawak? What happened to that resurgence of hope among the usually hopeless Dayaks for redemption from poverty and mental enslavement?

Article Link : http://www.thenutgraph.com/dayak-urban-rural-divide

Sizing up the new PM

Sim Kwang Yang ( SKY ) @ Malaysiakini

So we Malaysians have a new prime minister, a new cabinet, and a new administration.

MCPX

From the way the BN controlled mainstream media cover the event, you would think that the whole country is exploding with joy at the arrival of a new Messiah and his twelve apostles.

Inevitably, the press will publish “positive” response from the BN component parties, business leaders, community leading lights, and the odd selected men and women on the street.

I have lived to watch five prime ministers come and go. Najib Abdul Razak is my sixth PM. To call him “my” PM is a little awkward, for I did not vote for him, but the convention of linguistic usage has to be observed.

Thanks to alternative media like Malaysiakini, my cynical “anti-social” voice has found a perfect platform. But my cynical voice is not born from any form of destructive nihilism, but from my idealistic dream of what Malaysia could be.

From that seemingly paradoxical position of idealistic cynicism, let us proceed to evaluate the early days of the new premiership of Najib Abdul Razak.

Article Link :- http://www1.malaysiakini.com/news/102147

Is universal and free health care for all Sarawakians possible?

By Sim Kwang Yang (SKY)

The sad story of the poor Penan woman in Cancerland is the reason for my story to-day.

I went to study at the University of Winnipeg in Canada in 1971, having been turned away by Malaysian universities for the usual reasons. Upon registration at the university and on the strength of my overseas student card alone, I was given comprehensive health insurance, for which I had to pay 4.50 Canadian Dollars per month.

My Canadian experience

I received excellent health care from the university clinic, the kind that was never available in Sarawak. My haemorrhoid that had haunted me for years disappeared.

After a couple of years, the state owned Manitoba Hydro which generates electricity for the entire province of Manitoba, of which Winnipeg is the capital, offered to pay for all health insurance for all the residents. Universal free health care was made available, even to an overseas student like me.

My Canadian job

I did not get a scholarship for my study, again for obvious reasons. The first summer holiday, I decided to work to supplement what little funds I had. I went to work as a nursing orderly at a local private medical facility that cared for the disabled in Manitoba.

The pay was quite good. I got an hourly wage of 4 Canadian Dollar per hour. (The exchange rate was about 2.3 Ringgit to the Canadian Dollar then.) After a few years, I rose to be the senior orderly, and made 7 Canadian Dollars per hour. In the 70s, that was big money.

During Christmas seasons, all the local Canadians

Alice in Cancerland

“Sometimes we are too engrossed in the grand political narratives, and we lose sight of the ordinary Sarawakian. The following story below about a sick Sarawakian lady makes up for that neglect – Sky”

By Keruah Usit

Alice was already a young mother when she found out she had cancer of the nose. She was in her mid-twenties, the target age of trashy magazines and “natural-looking cosmetics”. She had a shy smile and dimples in her cheeks, and she had passed on her pretty smile and dimples to her two little daughters.

Alice’s husband Abel, a hunter and farmer, loved her, and, unlike most other husbands the world over, listened to her. Her small children hung on to her every word.

Alice lived by a river in rural Sarawak, three hundred kilometres (as the helicopter flies) from the nearest hospital. She had noticed a swelling growing around her left eye for six months, but she could not afford the two hundred Ringgit it cost to get to Miri Hospital.

Signature Forgery Trial Adjourned

Foul play in death of anti-logging Penan chief Kelasau Naan?

By Ken Hu

Trial of 2 suspected forging signature of son of Penan chief Kelasau Naan to dispel suspicion of any foul play in the death of the anti-logging Penan chief had proceeded for 2 days and adjourned for continuation of trial on May 11.

Nick Kelasau, 44, son of Kelasau Naan gave evidence for the prosecution over the last 2 days in the trial of the 2 suspects, Kho Thien Seng and Sedi bin Li, charged for forging his signature in a letter bearing Nick’s name and sent to online portal Malaysiakini purportedly denying any element of foul play in the death of his father.

The 2 suspect are charged for forgery and if found guilty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to 2 years, with fine, under section 465 of the Penal Code.

Nick, when contacted, expressed his astonishment and amazement that the suspects’ lawyer kept persuading him to admit that he had signed the letter and suggested that he could have signed it unknowingly.

“The event that took place early last year was still fresh in my mind. I could not have mistakenly signed it too, or I would not have lodged the police report if I have signed it,” said Nick.

Kelasau Naan, 80 years old anti-logging Penan leader had gone missing on Oct 23 2007 after telling his wife, Uding Lidem, that he was going to check on an animal trap he had set near their hut – situated near the Sungai Segita river about two hours walk from their long-house of Long Kerong.

Failing to locate Kelasau despite the use of tracker dogs, the villagers feared that their headman had died.

On Dec 17, the villagers discovered Kelasau’s skull

Nerima duit, Ngirup tang agi BN

Hornbill Unleashed has varied perspectives on the recently concluded Batang Ai by-election. Two friends were heard debating passionately at a coffee shop in BDC just on the outskirt of Kuching after the results were announced. Approach was then made to have them pen their views for the benefits of the broader audience. Today is the first part of the two opposing views – HU Editor

By Andy

For those who don’t know, it means “Take the money, drink up and vote BN”. This is for the uneducated and simple-minded kampong folks. Juxtapose this to the middle class cum intellectual cum yuppies, it means “take the money from BN, accumulate wealth and still consider yourselves as anti-establishment, for self interest.” For the very top politicians, it is just plainly “join the BN for personal benefits if you can’t beat them!”

In terms of money, every voter gets RM50 to vote for BN (normally, but for the recent Batang Ai voters, it was more like RM500 per vote) while their middle voice gets “RM4000 upwards” as salary in their government jobs, at universities, or in government-linked companies etc and their upper voice gets “RM10,000 upwards” with contracts, as some head of departments or ministries or government-owned corporations.

Taib’s loyalists like Jabu gets “multi-millions” while the master gets infinity. Everybody gets something and that is as if how wealth is distributed. All done in the name of the Rakyat of course!

A sickening reality at different levels of society!

Welcome to Sarawak!

So, tell the RM50 voters about reformasi, about democracy, about all the other “cy” (meaning death in Hokkien dialect) while the yuppies accumulate wealth by owning banks (owned by Umnoputra and other cronies, including Chinese of course) for their houses, cars, and even plasma TV etc.

Welcome to the “humancy”, human mati.

RM50 voters voted BN, everything remains the same. Meaning B