File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9705, message 1


Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 15:20:27 +0100
From: John Hutnyk <John.Hutnyk-AT-man.ac.uk>
Subject: People v Dam in Sarawak


Hi folks,

Since sending the first few paras of the MSC document last week turned
out to be a good way to circulate the draft (20 requests, several
helpful comments so far), I guess I'll try the same agasin with this
one. Its a discussion of the huge Bakun Hydro Electric Dam project in
Sarawak. Mostly my text focusses upon the role of anthropology and
consultants to the project, but does so in the context of a substantial
campaign/struggle on the part of variously allied groups in Sarawak,
Malaysia and overseas...

*Resettling Bakun: Consultancy, Anthropologists and the Armed Forces*.

John Hutnyk
(Social Anthropology, University of Manchester)

They want to send in the army. Mahathir’s troops. Sure, its only to
facilitate the resettlement of the local people, but there are reasons
to be suspicious. Who is it that should question this?

The Bakun Region People’s Committee have rejected the ‘Resettlement
Package’ offered to them as compensation for the loss of homes and
livelihood as a consequence of the massive RM13.6 Billion Bakun
hydro-electric dam project in the Belaga district of Sarawak (The Star
26, March 1997). Villagers from 15 effected longhouses, part of the
9,500 people who will have to be relocated from the middle of this year,
said the ‘offer was inadequate’ and, in the words of Committee Chairman
Bato Bagi; ‘the villagers will continue to stay on their respective
homes and the land that they have cultivated since the days of their
fore-fathers’ (The Star). The proposed Bakun dam project involves the
clearing of 70,000 hectares of forest, a 600 km underwater cable which
will be laid across the South China Sea to carry power from Sarawak to
the Malaysian peninsula, and the flooding of land that will create a
lake the size of Singapore. It is no small initiative, and the Bakun
people’s have been asked to make a sacrifice for the economic prosperity
of the country… There have been many criticisms of the project, more
than can be listed here. Among the most prominent have been that it is a
glamour private industry venture of benefit only to construction
companies and engineering firms, as well as loggers and other commercial
operations (for example, reports that the international mining company
RTZ/CRA are considering plans for a Comalco Aluminium smelter that would
utilise the electricity of the dam). A second level of criticism has
been that the contractors for the project are favourites, and in some
cases relatives, of the Government leaders who will grant tenders, and
additionally, that the electricity needs of Sarawak, and even Malaysia,
are not best served by a dam project that will inevitably suffer from
problems of cost, siltation and exhaustion of generating capacity within
fifty years, attendant ecological damage, and threat of collapse (for
detailed criticism of large dam projects see McCully 1996). In addition,
there are questions rightly raised about the benefits of the project to
the people of Sarawak itself, and Belaga District in particular. As with
any ‘development’ project, the question must attend to the equations and
gains and losses, and in this case, the people seem determined to ensure
they do not lose.

My interest in writing this commentary is not to romanticise some
people’s movement against development, nor to glamorise, or
overestimate, the prospects of the villagers fighting and winning
against the Government/private consortium/international business block.
Whatever the prospects for a progressive outcome to this struggle, which
also draws in the interests of other Malaysian organisations, and in
some cases international NGOs (for better or worse), my interest in this
particular discussion is to look at the history of the resettlement
process to date, and to consider the role of the consultants and
anthropologists who have informed the discussion. Although the
resettlement offer has only been rejected today, this story goes back
nearly ten years…

Some time ago, a European consultancy firm was hired......

[there follows a detailed discussion of the consultancy reports, the
anthropologists employed, the ways the people are represented, and some
other bits. I am writing up a larger discussion of consultacy v
advocacy/activism in the social sciences of which this is just a part...
email me privately for a copy of the Bakun draft so far - about 5,000
words or so]

Red Salute
John
--

********************************************
John Hutnyk
John.Hutnyk-AT-man.ac.uk
http://les.man.ac.uk/~msrdsjh/index.htm
mail: Dept Social Anthropology
University of Manchester
M13 9PL, UK
tel: +44 (0)161 248 8967



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