Indigenous leader barred from Hydropower World Congress in Malaysia
SAVE Rivers Police Report
The International Hydropower Assocation's World Congress to be held in Kuching, Sarawak/ Malaysia, from 21 to 24 May 2013, is beginnig badly.
Peter Kallang, an important indigenous leader from Baram, Sarawak, has been barred this morning from a pre-congress workshop organized jointly by the International Hydropower Association (IHA), the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Despite having paid the horrendous IHA World Congress' registration fee of USD 1750, Mr. Kallang was stopped this morning from boarding a bus to the International Hydropower Association's pre-congress workshop at Sarawak Energy Bhd's office. The reason given to Mr. Kallang was that he had written critical letters to the International Hydropower Association's chairman, Richard Taylor, over the IHA's cooperation with the regime of Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud and the association'ss policy to exclude affected indigenous people from the congress.
Mr. Kallang, who is heading the Save Sarawak Rivers network, lodged a police report against the responsible IHA representative, Mr. Douglas Smith, who apparently acted upon instruction by Sarawak Energy.
The Bruno Manser Fund strongly condemns this attempt by the International Hydropower Association and by Sarawak Energy to silence critical voices and demands an immediate apology from IHA Director Richard Taylor over the incident and a guarantee that Mr. Kallang and all indigenous and NGO representatives will be granted unlimited access to the IHA congress.
The leadership of the World Bank, the IFC, the ADB and the IDB will be notified over this grave incident against basic standards of fairness and will be asked for an explanation
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