No change in plight of Penan

KUALA LUMPUR: A scathing two-part report in the Sarawak Eastern Times regarding a UK-film screening of documentary “Penusah Tana” about the Penan community’s struggle has compelled its producer to refute several allegations.

Former Star reporter Hillary Chiew, who produced the documentary in 2007 tracing the native community’s struggle, is shocked at veteran writer James Ritchie’s report.

She said Ritchie had never contacted her to verify details of the screening neither did he check with the organisers of the screening. Ritchie in his reports states that the screening was held on April 17 at the BPP Holborn Law School in London.

Below is her rebuttal to Sarawak Eastern Times’ articles by Ritchie.

By Hillary Chiew

On April 14, three days before a film-screening intended for a Malaysian crowd was scheduled in London, the Sarawak-based newspaper, Eastern Time, front-paged a story drawing attention to the event.

It was to be the screening of my documentary film -- Penusah Tana (The Forgotten Struggle).

In a highly unusual publicity of the event, veteran journalist James Ritchie implied that the film presented a false picture of the Penan's long-standing resistance against logging.

Interestingly, he included his interview with Ajang Kiew, the protege of the film, of which the senior Penan admitted to his involvement in past blockades – the peaceful protest method employed by the Penan that has come to symbolise their defence of their forest home in the high-profile international campaign to save Sarawak rainforest.

Notwithstanding the fact that Ajang Kiew has decided that he has enough of the confrontational ways and now preferred to engage in “give and take” discussions, the historical facts remain that he was a veteran blockader as depicted in the film.

As I won't pretend to be able to comprehend the hardship that Ajang has suffered all those years, so I would not judge him for his decision in his old age.

However, I did make it a point at the screening in London to mention that Ajang has abandoned the struggle and no longer heads the Sarawak Penan Association.

Never did Ritchie contact me to verify if indeed his interpretation of the event was correct. Neither did he check with the host of the event that the screening was a campaign against Malaysian timber and oil palm plantation industries as he virtuously proclaimed.

Public outrage

I have never met Ritchie and couldn't have possibly offended him to warrant such a personal attack that was so apparent in the following article the next day in the same newspaper, again on the front-page.

In the second article, he wrote: “Failing in her attempts to sway local public opinion by raising emotional issues such as the alleged rape of Penan schoolgirls, Chiew is now treading on the trodden path of foreign NGOs bent on attacking Malaysian primary industries.”

As was typical of mainstream media reporting, particularly timber company-owned Sarawak newspapers, on conflicts arising from commercial logging in the state for the last quarter century, Ritchie pointed his finger at western media/NGOs evil interference.

Alas, he would be disappointed. Neither was western media invited to the screening nor was there presence of western environmental NGOs.

As for the Penan rape case – public outrage was evident from the number of letters, SMSes, local NGOs and official responses carried in major newspaper and online publications. The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development promptly set up a task force and the police launched an investigation.

The task force's report acknowledged that sexual violation of Penan women and young girls was indeed a problem afflicting the marginalised Penan community. Until today, the police have neither officially announced their investigation results nor decisions on the matter.

Ritchie surely is aware of the Ministerial Penan Task Force Report which incidentally included the testimonies of the two young victims highlighted in my articles.

In the last few years, the plight of the Penan is also documented by the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) in the agency’s own independent investigations which showed that the Penan are worst off today than they were 20 years ago and the underlying cause being the unsustainable logging practices sanctioned by the state.

“Penusah Tana” documentary was premiered in Malaysia in 2007 and screened at numerous venues and is viewable on the website www.whatrainforest.com