Dear Friends,

On Sunday, November 22, 1998, 300 indigenous families in Sarawak, Malaysia will loose their homes and ancestral land to make way for the Bakun Hydroelectric Dam. The Long Geng Long house community is one of 15 other long houses that will be affected by the dam displacing approximately 10,000 indigenous people.

Due to the economic down turn, the Malaysian government has stated that the dam will be down sized but no information on this revision has been circulated. There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding the status of the new dam. Yet the people are being evicted.

What you can do!
The people tell their story in a press statement that was released at a press conference today. You can do the same. Pass this story to your press contacts or any interested party. You could also respond by sending appeal letters to the Prime Minister, Chief Minister and other related government officials expressing your objections on forced evictions and displacement of indigenous peoples from their tribal land.

The press statement and a sample of an appeal letter is attached below. It would be great if you could email a copy of the appeal letter which you have sent to me. It would be an indicator of the support and solidarity from friends around the world which would be conveyed to the affected people.

Finally, it was suggested that for more impact from these appeal letters, appeal letters should be sent to all concerned with notes of copies sent to their superiors ie appeal letter to District Office with notes of copies (cc) sent to Prime Minister, Chief Minister, etc, etc or to Chief Minister with a cc to the Prime Minister. But remember that these appeal letters should be sent to all concerned.

Thank you for your time and effort.

In solidarity,
Joanna de Rozario
Co-ordinator
Urban Resource Unit