http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/265334
11 June 2014
Ba’Kelalan assemblyperson Baru Bian has expressed deep concern over the
drug abuse problem in the district of
Lawas that is getting worse as
some police personnel are allegedly involved in supplying drugs to addicts. read more
here.
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A bit of background,
In Lawas, death of Lun Bawang teen sparks ethnic tensions (26 September 2012)
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/in-lawas-death-of-lun-bawang-teen-sparks-ethnic-tensions
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — Hundreds of upset
Lun Bawang natives who took to the streets in a Sarawak border town following the
controversial death of a 19-year-old teenage boy from their tribe last Friday have sparked fears of a racial and religious fallout with Malay-Muslims, the Borneo Post reported today.
Edwin Singa Pelipus from the village of
Long Lopeng — roughly 2km from the timber and agricultural Lawas town in north Sarawak, which borders Brunei to the west and Sabah to the east — was
stabbed to death with a screwdriver in a fight last Friday evening in an incident believed to have involved several Kedayan Malay Muslims.
His death triggered an immediate outburst of anger from friends, relatives and people from Long Lopeng and nearly
Sipitang and
Ba’Kelalan who gathered in Lawas over the last two days and led a march demanding justice for the youth, the English-language daily reported.
Their presence had raised fears from the local
Kedayan Malay community who
felt threatened and responded by mounting their own gathering in the town, leading to clashes with the
Lun Bawang community, who are predominantly Christians.
Malay Muslims make up 60 per cent of Malaysia’s 28 million total population, but indigenous Christians in Sarawak form the bulk of the country’s religious minority group that number 10 per cent.
The police have
arrested 11 people who are suspected of being involved in the teen’s killing, the Borneo Post reported, adding that
three of them will be charged with murder.
Sarawak police commissioner
Datuk Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani was cited by The Borneo Post as confirming the tensions were due to
long-standing feuds between the two ethnic groups and urging them to settle their disputes peacefully through lawful channels set up under the state government.
“Do not spill your quarrel over to the public but settle it through your community leaders and headmen,” Acryl was quoted as saying by the widely-read daily, the largest English-language paper circulating in Borneo.
But others, including Ba’Kelalan state lawmaker Baru Bian, say that the killing was the culmination of the authorities’ failure to crack down on vice activities, especially the drug menace which has been growing over the years.
“The protesters, I was told, wanted to highlight the
syabu menace that
has been plaguing Lawas and demanded the authorities to investigate and stop the
well-known activities of the trafficking and use of
illicit drugs in the region,
especially syabu,” he said in a media statement today, referring to the local name for methamphetamine.
Baru, who is also a lawyer who has championed for indigenous rights,
noted there were past cases of physical violence over the last 10 years that had resulted in bodily harm in Lawas due to
widespread drug abuse, which he said were perpetrated by the same group of people.
“
This is not a race or religious issue and we must not allow this incident to become one.
Let no party or persons claim that racial or religious sensitivities have been affected,” he said, echoing calls from the police and local community leaders in Sarawak who played down the rising ethnic tensions.
A Lawas local, who only wanted to be known as
Balang, told The Malaysian Insider the
drug culture has been growing insidiously since the 1980s but had long been neglected, and that Edwin’s death was the tipping point as the
Lun Bawang community was fed up by government inaction.
“It’s a 20-year-old problem. Most of our young boys are caught up in this. There have been small cases here and there
but the police have not taken action.
“When it happens, people go ‘
Where is the policeman?’” said the 40-year-old who is regarded as the go-to person on local culture, customs.
Balang described it as a
long-standing problem involving vice and debt, but was unclear on the two communities’ roles in the situation.
Lawas and nearby Limbang were
known as Sarawak’s sin capitals in the 1970s right up to the 1990s and saw
prostitution dens,
sleazy massage parlours and
pubs mushrooming in town, which have been systematically cleaned up over the years.
But progress appears to have been impeded by allegations of
widespread corruption, unresolved native land issues, a lack of basic infrastructure and breach of
constitutional safeguards as contained in the
18-Point Agreement for Sarawak and the
20-Point for Sabah over the past decades.
Malaysia’s two easternmost states also
rank among the country’s top three poorest states —
Sabah’s overall poverty is the nation’s highest at 19.7 per cent, while
Sarawak is third at 5.3 per cent, according to official statistics from the 2009 National Household Income Survey Report.
While police have beefed up their local presence with an
extra platoon of General Operations Force and 45 more officers from Miri and Limbang and the streets of
Lawas have quietened down, there is still a lingering sense of unease, Balang said.
“Yah, there are more police now. It is now very quiet.
People are scared to go out,” he said.
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