The culprit behind the Cameron Highlands mudslide – Sin Chew Daily

Source: The Malaysian Insider Published: 25 November 2014

Flash floods and landslides in Cameron Highlands early this month had claimed five lives. The government said illegal land and illegal foreign workers were the culprits of the disaster. The police and the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) were therefore ordered to deploy more personnel to Cameron Highlands and crack down on illegal nighttime exploitation activities.

And now, a large number of police has set up roadblocks to strictly inspect vehicles going up and down Cameron Highlands, while some also entered remote areas and forests to search illegal foreign workers. So far, 39 illegal foreign workers have been detained. The armed forces and Immigration officers also launched unprecedented search at vegetable farms, causing some legal foreign workers to be taken away and released only after their employers negotiated with the authorities the next day. The quiet atmosphere has suddenly turned tense, with illegal foreign workers fleeing, and even legal foreign workers are trying to avoid from being caught.

The need to clamp down on illegal foreign workers is understandable, but the law enforcement operations should avoid disturbing and affecting local residents. Farmers in Cameron Highlands have always been facing labour shortage problem. We do not encourage the employment of illegal foreign workers, but blindly launching a large-scale clampdown operation on foreign workers is undoubtedly a major blow to farmers who rely heavily on foreign workers, and it is even worse for those affected by floods. 

Cameron Highlands has been a famous highland resort known for its cool climate, scenery and pleasant natural environment. The outbreak of floods was extremely rare in the past but in recent years, floods struck during heavy rains, causing casualties and serious property damages. The originally dark green mountains have now become barren, showing that Cameron Highlands has been over-exploited and deforested.

The government blames illegal exploitation activities for causing the flash floods and it is indeed the case. However, the culprit is not the employed and instructed illegal foreign workers, but the backstage manipulators who used relationships to illegally appropriate the land and launched massive exploitation activities. Various drawbacks like business-government collusion, power intervention and abuse of power have been involved in the process of turning illegal exploitation into legal development. And these are the bane of the disaster in Cameron Highlands.

If the government had frozen the issuance of temporary lease since 2001, but exploitation projects have still been going on in the recent two years, it shows that officers responsible for approving temporary lease have enjoyed too much power and involved in dereliction of duty. There are also doubts over honesty and integrity. Since the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) received reports regarding illegal land appropriation in Cameron Highlands, it should then start investigating, instead of passively waiting for someone to provide sufficient information.

All in all, to tackle illegal exploitation, it should get back to the abuse of power and business-government collusion problems. Focusing on illegal foreign workers while letting the backstage manipulators go free would not be able to once and for all solve the problem. – mysinchew.com, November 25, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

We need fresh lessons like Cameron Highlands tragedy to remind us to respect nature – K. T. Maran

Source: The Malaysian Insider, 16 November 2014

The Cameron Highlands incident had opened up the Pandora box that we are plundering the earth for our greed which can never ever be satisfied.

It is the Malaysian culture to let whatever happen before accident strikes and then the public and the government take notice and try to figure out the reasons for the incident and find solutions.

This is Malaysian institutional way of identifying, discovering and implementing solutions. This culture of the institution and the public must change, if not nature will teach it lessons in a very non-reversible process which will result in the death of the innocents and sufferings to the general public just to appease the few greedy invisible hand.

The  Malaysian government must realise we have to implement and monitor policies which are sustainable.

One of the main roots of our unsustainable society is the idea that human beings are somehow separate or independent from Nature and the rest of life. Its not so difficult to see how we have modelled our lifestyle after western culture based on this foundation.

The signs are everywhere: in the way we live, enclosing our homes from the outside world as we try to keep the dirt out; in the way we speak and relate to one another, with an emphasis on “me”, “I”, “you”, “mine”; in the way we traditionally conduct science, believing in an independent experimenter.

This view has enabled us to treat Nature as an inanimate object to do with whatever we please. We can blow up mountaintops, pollute entire oceans, destroy entire ecosystems, contaminate ground water, cause the extinction of millions of species of life all without consequence, or so we believe.

The truth is this idea that we are separate from the rest of life is at the core of both our broader, societal issues and our internal unease with trusting others.

Because we believe ourselves to be separate, we feel alone and disconnected in the universe. This feeling manifests in a feeling of anxiety and a desire to control as much of the world as possible to prevent an indifferent world from causing harm to us. Hence, you see countries spending trillions of dollars on military weaponry to exert force in an attempt to control the world.

You see corporations spending trillions to extract timber, fossil fuel, fertile soil, and water to facilitate the conversion of the natural world into a fictitious commodity, money.

All of this would seem crazy to a culture that lived according to the knowledge that all life is interconnected. Not only is all life made up of the guts of exploding stars but we are connected through mirror neurons hard-wired to feel the emotional distress (and joy) of another.

Whatever we do to this world, we invariably do to ourselves. The problem is that western culture and institutions are founded on a lie that we are separate from the universe and the rest of life.

This pillar explores and confirms what has long been held as truth by indigenous peoples and mystics through the ages – namely, that we are deeply connected not just to each other but all of life.

If we are not willing to learn from the indigenous people who are eternal, more furious accidents are awaiting to strike soon to teach us that earlier lessons were ignored and we need fresh lessons, to make sure we learn it now.

Camerons is doomed

THE NEW STRAITS TIMES EDITORIAL15 NOVEMBER 2014 @ 8:10 AM

LAWLESSNESS seems to pervade in Cameron Highlands. If law enforcement has been effective, illegal land clearing could not have been as rampant and blatant as it is. The latest report says that some 1,000 hectares — a size equivalent to 1,400 football fields — have been illegally cleared in the past three months for farming. Only corruption and fear can allow for such criminality to occur right under the noses of law enforcers. Some attribute this to inadequate security personnel but the district officer’s (DO) request, made to the Home Ministry last year for the highlands’ law enforcement personnel to be armed, clearly highlights the latter. That it was shot down is no reflection of the reality of possible violence, a not unexpected scenario when dealing with criminal elements.

Now, suspicions of corruption are being slowly confirmed after the authorities threatened to get tough on offenders with the participation of a multi-agency force meant to rid the area of the cause of its rapid destruction — a fearful prospect for the country’s ecosystem. Already, water catchment areas are being destroyed and landslides occurring more frequently following heavy rains. And, only last week, a mud flood swept away lives and property. Inaction is no longer excusable, hence, the recent raids on illegal workers. Almost 200 have been apprehended thus far. While this demonstration of will by the federal authorities is happening, fear mounts. Recent months clearly showed that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) means business. Corrupt officers and private sector corruptors are being charged in court. Now, as the revamped, no longer toothless MACC is roped in, the nervous twitches have produced “yellow letters” of instruction to allow certain well-connected parties to open and develop the highlands, putting the Pahang Palace, though not the Royal House, in the line of fire. Meanwhile, a long-serving retired DO has come out declaring that corruption is nothing new. Apparently, everyone knew of it but nobody was able to stem the flow. Painting an image of Hollywood’s Wild, Wild West, these actions have brought Cameron Highlands to the brink of what geologists refer to as a catastrophe “of an unimaginable scale”.

The evidence of immense ecological degradation is now too obvious to ignore. While, thus far, the matter has been under the Pahang government’s jurisdiction, surely a threatened collapse of the entire hill system must warrant stern action from the federal authorities. Geologists have identified an already shaky hill structure caused by massive illegal clearing, removal of top soil, heavy siltation and excess groundwater. This year alone, there have been 150 mudslide incidents. So dire is the situation that the doomsayers are saying that the problem is beyond control. But surrender is not an option. First step, therefore, is aggressive law enforcement accompanied by nothing less than prison terms for all found guilty; from the lowly labourer through to the senior civil servants and implicated palace officials.