|
The Forests of the Earth send
out ONE call: Let us BE !!!
It seems that everywhere the
Peoples of the Forests
on Earth start realizing that enough is enough.
The forwarded message concerning
the Dayak people, joins the call of the Ogiek of Kenya,
the tribal voices from the Amazonian and of the central African
Forest peoples, like the
BaTwa and BaAka:
The Forests are the Lungs of the
Earth, and the destruction of this enormeous life-giving garden
HAS TO BE STOPPED, if we want to survive at all.
Please miners, governers,
worldcitizens, car driving individuals, activists, pacifists, etc.
etc. etc.,
LISTEN to the call of the children of the forests; LISTEN to the
call of mother Earth Herself:
LET THE FORESTS AND THE WAY THEIR CHILDREN INHABIT THEM BE!!!!!!
PLEASE SO CALLED CIVILISED PEOPLE,
ACT RESPONSIBLE,
Harmonise your Life, Treat Life Respectful: TAKE CARE !
IT IS NOT YET TOO LATE!
Peace Be with You
Irene van Schagen
-----------------------------------------------------
Leave us in
peace
By Riska Orpa
Sari
The Globe and Mail, Friday, March 9,
2001
The Dayaks
of Borneo have been called savage -- but we
are only protecting our land, says
author RISKA ORPA SARI
Hundreds of
people have been killed on the island of Borneo
in the past few weeks. News reports tell the
world that the Dayak
people of Kalimantan, in the Indonesian part
of Borneo, have been
attacking non-Dayaks, mainly settlers from
the island of Madura,
with spears and machetes -- sometimes
beheading them.
The stories recall those from West Borneo in
1997 when more
than 5,000 Madurese settlers were killed and
thousands more lost
their homes and possessions. But this time,
the war is in Sampit,
only four hours drive from where my family
lives.
As a Dayak
woman born and raised in a Dayak community in
Central Kalimantan, I understand what our
people feel.
For centuries, our needs and rights have
been denied by the
government. Their policy has brought only
suffering to our people,
especially as they send millions of
transmigrants from the most
crowded islands of Java and Madura to our
island.
The
government's intention is to give a better life to those
transmigrants. They encourage them to open
the forest,
cultivate the land and introduce a modern
way of life to the Dayak,
because we are considered by many outsiders
as primitive
and uneducated tribal people.
A flow of
human beings has been sent like cattle to Kalimantan.
Thousands of hectares of lush rain forest
have been clear-cut
to fill the need for land for the newcomers.
Since the program
started, the region has suffered enormous
destruction.
Any voice from indigenous people has been
repressed to
silence. The soil of Borneo is heavy with
the weight of so many
people, who bring destruction to the rain
forest on which we
indigenous people depend for life.
For the Dayak,
the natural world is important to our culture,
our belief and our way of life. Borneo,
third-largest island in
the world after Greenland and New Guinea, is
home to many
rare species, such as orangutans, clouded
leopards and the
Dayak holy bird, the great hornbill.
For thousands
of years, we made peace with nature.
Our every basic need is still supplied by
the rain forest -- food,
meat, essential material and medicine.
Even our
ancient beliefs: We are born of the forest, live by the
forest, die and are buried in the forest.
Our highest God lives
on the mountain of Sabayan, which rises out
of the trees.
As to our belief, we are obliged to take
care of nature and
guard our God's home from destruction.
Meanwhile,
the source of life for the Dayak and many rare
species of wildlife is intensively cut and
timbered.
The earth is intensively mined for gold and
diamonds,
leaving the island bald, dry and exhausted.
The Dayak
people realize that their Gods are now
homeless and poor.
They voice their objections, but no one
bothers to pay
attention.
It's obvious
that our rights and welfare are not an important
issue to the government. They think we
should be thankful to
have the leftover scrub.When the Dayak
realized that every
aspect of their way of life, the beauty of
nature that they
worship and even the sacred places of their
Gods had
been hreatened, tension began to mount.
The wealth of
the island had been ruthlessly taken away,
leaving nothing for them to live on. The
greatest rain forest
in the world was now dry and poor. There
were no animals
left on the cleared land. Hunger forced the
Dayak to migrate
to towns for a handful of rice, but these
forest people could
not compete with the newcomers in their
land.
So, betrayed and exploited, the anger
exploded. Being
used, neglected and ignored left our people
bitter.
Vengeance emerged.
The need to
defend our land has come to the surface,
the need to take our land and natural world
back.
Being trampled over for many years brought
pain
and disappointment, but it also brought the
Dayak
people together.
We think the
Madurese people are hard-willed and
aggressive. Madura is known as the
driest, poorest,
most overpopulated island in Indonesia. For
many
years, its people have sought every possible
means
of making a living--cutting the forest,
mining the ground,
even stealing from others when necessary.
But once the forest is cut, the soil is too
thin to grow
anything but oil-palm trees.
In Kalimantan,
this has made the disappointed newcomers
grow angry and reckless. This place they had
come to
was supposed to be rich with opportunity.
Its natural wealth was supposed to be
abundant!
Suddenly, indigenous people felt afraid.
For years,
others have accused the Dayaks of envy.
But if we envied people for living a better
life, we
would envy the Chinese, Malaysians, Javanese
or
Balinese who also live among us.
We do not live in peace with the Madurese.
While most of the world is misled to think
of the
Dayak as uncivilized and barbaric, I know
that the
Dayak people want to live in peace with
nature.
We are the people of the forest. We do not
make
peace with people who destroy our home.
It is a sad
fact that our welfare does not matter to
the government. They deny our welfare as
they
have denied the welfare of the East Timorese.
Kalimantan makes the largest contribution of
timber in Indonesia. For the government, it
is a
cash crop. Dealing with poor, uneducated
indigenous
people is an advantage, whereas bringing
education and development to the Dayak will
only cause the government problems.
We who fought for the independence of our
nation
from the Dutch have been forgotten. Our rice
paddies and longhouses are in the path of
the
bulldozers. Our land is given to the
Madurese,
along with any available jobs. Is there a
better future
for us and our children? Is there justice
for my people?
It is the
government that destroys the rain forest and
endorses the activities of greedy timber
tycoons.
It is the government that must save what
remains.
For a century we lived very peacefully until
the day of
transmigration. Then the government
destroyed
everything we value in our lives. I know in
my heart
that the fighting will continue unless the
government
stops sending transmigrants to Kalimantan.
Riska Orpa
Sari is the author of
Riska: Memories of a Dayak
Girlhood
(Knopf Canada), which was shortlisted
for the
Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize.
Copyright 2000 |
The Globe and Mail
-------------------------
ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
|
