ORANG ASLI MAKIN DIPINGGIRI

Rencana ini mengisahkan beberapa nasib kaum peribumi, iaitu orang asli yang semakin dipinggiri. Mereka nampaknya menjadi warganegara kelas kedua padahal merekalah penduduk asal negara. Pada 25 Sept 2000 lalu, 300 orang asli Tasik Bera menunjuk perasaan. Pihak berkuasa negeri telah merobohkan rumah dan menjahanamkan tanaman mereka. Akibatnya 700 keluarga orang asli di situ merana. Padahal kebanyakkan mereka memangkah parti dacing semasa pilihanraya! Sudahlah tidak mendapat geran tanah, dinyahkan pula siap dengan pihak polis yang bersenjata....

Rujuk: Rencana Harakahdaily

1. Tasik Bera 1
2. Tasik Bera 2

ORANG ASLI SUNGAI SELANGOR

Rencana Business Week ini pula memaparkan nasib orang Asli di Selangor bila empangan Selangor dibina.

Permintaan air yang sentiasa meningkat sekitar 8% - 9% setiap tahun oleh Selangor dan Kuala Lumpur merupakan sebab empangan itu dibina kerana dengannya dijangka kerajaan lebih bersedia jika krisis air berulang semula pada 2003. Kisah kekeringan air tahun 1998 itu menjadi alasan menghalalkan tindakkan.

Para pecinta alam sekitar tidak bersetuju kerana empangan itu akan menggangu imbangan alam. Ini termasuklah satu kawasan perlancungan dimana banyak serangga api-api berkerdipan sewaktu malam. Kerajaan sewajarnya menumpukan kepada masalah kehilangan 35% sumber air akibat kebocoran.

Selain itu pembersihan sungai yang 75% tercemar (teruknya) akan menolong masalah air itu. Tetapi pihak konsortium SPLASH yang diberi tender membina empangan bernilai $565 juta itu memberi alasan tidak mempunyai masa untuk membaiki saluran paip sepanjang 10,000 km di negeri Selangor sahaja.

Orang Asli Selangor itu telah dijinakkan dengan imbuhan supaya berpindah. Mereka akan diberi rumah baru dan sedikit wang. Tetapi setakat ini ia hanyalah janji manis sahaja. Selagi tiada geran hak milik tanah, selagi itulah mereka akan dihalau dari kampung mereka dengan mudah. Inilah nasib orang asli, tetapi nasib menteri besar lain pula. Dia mengubah suai rumahnya sahaja berjuta-juta, tetapi rakyat hidup melata dan sengsara. Esok lusa datanglah bulldozer, dan polis bersenjata. Itulah hadiah sebenar kerajaan yang diundi semasa pilihanraya.....

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_42/c3703173.htm

As a Dam Forces Villagers Out...They Worry about Their New Lives (int'l edition)

Navis bin Impok has spent a simple but idyllic life fishing and collecting fruit on ancestral lands beside the pristine Selangor River, but at 63, he is in for an unwanted career change. He and his family will also have to abandon their bamboo-and-wood home in a few months as the fleet of excavators, dump trucks, and tractors rumbling outside remind him every day. They are busy building a 110-meter-high dam that will inundate his gardens along with 600 surrounding hectares. The dam is to supply water for thirsty Kuala Lumpur, just an hour's drive away. The 300-plus residents of Navis' village of Gerachi and another called Pertak will have to move to higher ground, where they are to become oil-palm cultivators. ''The government says we will be better off there, but I don't think so--I don't know anything about palm oil,'' says Navis. ''We are sad to have to move.''

He's not alone. As members of the aboriginal population of peninsular Malaysia, the Orang Asli (''original people'') theoretically have land-use rights despite their lack of secure titles. In practice, though, they have long been pushed around by the politically dominant Malays. Rampant pre-colonial slavery chased them deeper into the jungle. And now, rampant development projects, from highways to golf courses, are displacing them again. But in the process, the Orang Asli are making common cause with Malaysia's fledgling environmental movement--an alliance that may improve their lot somewhat.

The battle over the Selangor dam began in 1998, when residents of the area discovered a dam was planned for their backyard. An ad-hoc coalition of organizations and concerned professionals argued that the dam was essentially a make-work project for well-connected companies. While everyone agrees Malaysia faces serious water problems, there's little accord on what to do about them. Demand, growing at 8% to 9% yearly in Selangor State and Kuala Lumpur, is constantly nipping at supply. The new dam is meant to head off the next water crisis, predicted for 2003; the last one, in 1998, forced severe rationing.

LOTS OF LEAKS. Environmentalists insist that building more dams won't solve the shortage. They argue for aggressive conservation and more professional water management, pointing out that the distribution network loses 35% of its water to leakage. Cleaning up rivers, 75% of which are badly polluted, would also help. But the consortium building the $565 million dam, three Malaysian companies known by the acronym SPLASH, say there is not enough time to repair the 10,000 kilometers of pipeline in Selangor state alone.

The Orang Asli and the environmentalists failed to stop Selangor, but one wonders how far it would have gotten in the more green-conscious West. The consulting firm that did the environmental impact assessment (EIA) was hired by SPLASH, the consortium winning the bid--which was not by open tender. Key parts of the EIA have never been made public. No matter: Navis bin Impok will be moving soon. ''We'll even have to pay for water up there,'' he says, shaking his head in puzzlement.

With just a handful of university grads among them, the Orang Asli are usually left on the sidelines in debates over development policy. But they seem to have benefited from the highly public fight over Selangor. SPLASH has vowed to make their lives in the two new villages better than before. Besides being given new brick homes, the villagers have been compensated for lost livelihoods--but not for their land--with a pay-out of about $1.8 million, an average of $21,600 per family. Each family will also receive two hectares of land planted with oil palms and $65 dollars monthly until the plants mature in three years' time.

Of course, many of the benefits are still just promises. It's also unclear whether two hectares of palm oil will be enough to replace previous income--not to mention that these barely literate people will find themselves buffeted by volatile world prices. Given their history, the Orang Asli are understandably suspicious. ''They should have been helping us a long time before the dam was being built,'' says Bida bin Chik, 55, Pertak's headman. But for the ''original people,'' that's apparently too much to ask.