Anti-Dam Activists Celebrate Two Years of Blockades in Malaysia

On Octo­ber 23rd 2015, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties from around the world gath­ered on the banks of the Baram Riv­er in Sarawak, Malaysia in the con­text of the sec­ond year anniver­sary of the indige­nous-led block­ades against the pro­posed Baram Dam. Two years ago indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties set up two block­ades and chased work­ers and researchers from the site. The works on the dam have come to a stand­still and last month the gov­ern­ment of Sarawak announced a mora­to­ri­um.

Indige­nous anti-dam activists from Indone­sia, the Philip­pines, Cam­bo­dia, Brazil, the US, Hon­duras, and from around Malaysia unit­ed at the block­ades to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the resis­tance against the Baram Dam and to strength­en ties between their com­mu­ni­ties. The week-long event is called the World Indige­nous Sum­mit on Envi­ron­ment and Rivers, WISER Baram 2015, and was host­ed by the grass­roots net­work SAVE Rivers.

Dur­ing cel­e­bra­tions at the two block­ades, the pro­posed dam site, as well as at a con­fer­ence in the town of Miri, the par­tic­i­pants were unit­ed by the sim­i­lar­i­ties between their strug­gles. “I have gained a lot of expe­ri­ence from all of the del­e­gates. And with such infor­ma­tion, I am con­fi­dent enough such expe­ri­ences will be fun­da­men­tal to us – the Baram Peo­ple – and our strate­gies to con­tin­ue to fight and stop the pro­posed Baram Dam,” said James Nyu­rang, who host­ed the del­e­gates at his vil­lage.

Accord­ing to Berta Cáceres, 2015 Gold­man Prize win­ner from Hon­duras, “this sum­mit on indige­nous peo­ples and rivers has a spe­cial val­ue in that its actions give strength to the his­toric resis­tance of our peo­ples and makes vis­i­ble the grave aggres­sion and con­flict gen­er­at­ed by the pri­va­ti­za­tion of rivers and the con­struc­tion of dams with­in Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and regions.”

The dec­la­ra­tion also calls on gov­ern­ments and insti­tu­tions to stop pre­sent­ing dams as cli­mate neu­tral, and rec­og­nize that dams emit large amounts of green­house gas­es, includ­ing methane.

Par­tic­i­pants in the sum­mit col­lec­tive­ly pro­duced a dec­la­ra­tion that acknowl­edges the wide­spread suf­fer­ing and destruc­tion caused by dams, and stress­es the impor­tance of obtain­ing Free, Pri­or, and Informed Con­sent from com­mu­ni­ties impact­ed by dam build­ing. It urges all stake­hold­ers to act in full account­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and com­pli­ance of all human rights prin­ci­pals and val­ues.

The indige­nous defense of the Baram riv­er stands unit­ed with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties’ strug­gles for land, liveli­hood, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, iden­ti­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty cohe­sion.