By Nile Bowie
In Malaysian
Borneo, home to some of the world’s oldest rainforests and an array of biodiverse plant
and animal species, logging will always be a sensitive issue. Controversy has recently surrounded
Sabah’s Chief Minister Musa Aman over allegations of embezzling $90 million (RM
279 million) from years of illegal logging operations in the state. The Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), a Swiss-based rainforest advocacy group, has filed a criminal
complaint against UBS Bank over ties with Aman through a number of bank
accounts he holds with UBS in Hong Kong and Zurich. [1]
BMF claims that Michael Chia, an
associate of Aman, organized large cash payments from timber companies with
logging interests in Sabah to UBS bank accounts in Hong Kong, which were used
to send money to Aman's sons in Australia and a senior official in Sabah. The
funds are alleged to be kickbacks from Malaysian timber operators paid to the
Chief Minister in return for being allowed to exploit tropical hardwood logging
concessions.
“We have reason to believe
the unfounded allegations are politically motivated and not driven by any love
for the environment. The allegations are therefore baseless and made with bad
intention to discredit the sacrifices made by the state government to achieve good
forest governance and sustainable forest management in the shortest time
possible, despite the economic, financial and social challenges. Short-term licenses
that cause tremendous damage to the environment are being drastically phased
out and Sabah’s forest management credibility is at its highest — an open-book
philosophy whereby logging and forest management areas are all open to
third-party and NGO scrutiny.” [4]
[5]
Founder of LEAP (Land
Empowerment Animals People) Cynthia Ong added that “nationally and regionally,
Sabah was emerging as a leader in pushing the boundaries in management of
natural ecosystem services, and for treating forests as stores of water, carbon
and biodiversity rather than just as timber sources.” She added that there are
still a number of issues that the NGOs want to address with the Department,
“but this is the sort of change that we do want to see.” [7]
Sabah’s Forestry
Department argues that since Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) has been introduced,
third party auditors who have overseen the issuance of long-term logging
licenses since 2010 would have detected such large scale illegal felling. The
department points out that Musa Aman led Sabah’s participation in the Great
Apes Succeed Project (GRASP) in accordance to UNESCO, which halted logging to
protect the natural habitat of several thousand orangutans at the loss of
approximately RM 4 billion in potential revenue. Sabah also boasts 1.3 million
hectares of Totally Protected Area Reserves (TPAS), accounting for
approximately 20 percent of the state’s total landmass. Under the
administration of Musa Aman, the issuance of short-term logging licenses have
begun being phased out in accordance with a deliberate drop in forest revenue to
ensure that ecosystems are given a chance to recuperate from industrial felling.
The Press Statement issued by Sabah’s Forestry Department additionally states:
At least 800,000 hectares of
Sabah’s forests are partially or fully certified under various internationally recognized
systems such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Malaysian Timber
Certification Scheme (MTCS), or the Pan European Forest Scheme (PEFC). This
also covers the Sabah Foundation with at least 250,000 hectares of fully
certified and 150,000 hectares partially certified forest. Many more forest
areas are being earmarked for certification as Sabah has set 2014 as the year
for all long term licensed areas to be fully certified. The process of
certification means independent third party auditing on the ground. If such an
allegation was true, why does Sabah continue to attract the attention of
certifying bodies and NGOs, who want to be our partners and to assist us in
obtaining verifiable and certifiable good governance? It is not lost to the
world that Sabah is the first tropical region in the whole world to have a
tract of rainforest certified under the Gold Standard of the FSC in 1997 i.e.
Dermakot Forest Reserve. This is a model area not just for Malaysia but the
tropical world. [8]
If these
statements prove to be accurate, then it would mean Chief Minister Musa Aman
has actually overseen an overall increase in areas of Totally Protected Area
Reserves (TPAS). Logically, if these allegations are baseless, then the alleged
$90 million in embezzled funds have either not originated from the illegal
felling of timber, or are simply non-existent. Other confirmed cases of
corruption and embezzlement have led to many Malaysians being quite susceptible
to disinformation, however it is irresponsible to deny the possibility. Chief
Minister Aman would regain public trust by making every effort to be
transparent and cooperative with any investigations to prove his innocence, any
attempts to deflect inquiry will likely be publically interpreted as
suspicious. Indeed, cases of illegal felling of timber do exist and corruption
is one of the main drivers of deforestation in Sarawak, which directly threatens
the fragile ecosystem and delicate way of life in indigenous tribal
communities.
The claims and
statistics provided by Sabah’s Forestry Department indeed prove that the
state’s leaders recognize their responsibility to maintain the necessary
balance between economic development and ecological preservation. In the
increasingly globalized world, development has often come at the expense of
uprooting indigenous communities with little respect for biodiversity and the
spiritual significance of designated land areas held by indigenous tribes. In
this respect, Malaysia is not without its shortcomings, but it is important to
recognize that state leadership has begun taking steps in the right direction. The
impressionability of the Malaysian middle class has become self-evident by the
conduct of those seeking a change in government, who are keen to display their
willingness to condemn the political establishment in Putrajaya without
scrutinizing the (often foreign) sources of their claims.
Upon visiting the
website of Swiss-based NGO, the Bruno
Manser Fund, one finds it quite curious that the organization has not
provided its financial statements or a list of its sponsors, which it states
are “private individuals, foundations
and selected businesses” – ironic for an organization set on exposing environmental
institutions that lack transparency. Upon visiting the website’s news portal, the
organization’s status as a “rainforest
advocacy group” is most curious, as it
clearly endorses non-environmental campaigns such as Ambiga Sreenevasan’s
Bersih Movement – in addition to “condemning” the trial of political opposition
leader Anwar Ibrahim. Additionally, the site links to Malaysiakini, the
nation’s most pro-opposition political news website, an annual recipient of $100,000
(RM 317,260) from the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the
United States Government. [9] As
Malaysia approaches an upcoming general election, political mud slinging as
become a component in every issue, with each side attempting to use any
opportunity to discredit each other.
Sarawak Report and its affiliate Radio Free Sarawak are dissident media outlets based in the United
Kingdom founded by British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown, and are
openly hostile to the Barisan Nasional-led state governments of Sabah &
Sarawak. Brown has demonstrated a clear bias by negligently exaggerating
various claims, alluding to isolated incidents of timber workers raping tribal
women, which Brown outrageously insinuates is the systematic policy of Prime
Minister Najib Razak’s government. [10] It is some measure of folly that while Clare Rewcastle
Brown and her organization focus on discrediting leadership in Malaysia, her
own brother-in-law, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, partnered with
the United States’ to invade and occupy Iraq at the expense of over a million
of civilian lives.
In conclusion, the
Malaysian officials accused of laundering money must make all efforts to be
transparent and to continue to deliver the kind of environmental policy that
respects ecosystems, biodiversity, and indigenous people. Barisan Nasional have
long regarded Sabah & Sarawak as their loyal political stronghold, and it
would appear that members of the opposition and their affiliates are attempting
to use all means to discredit the ruling governments of those states prior to
the highly anticipated general elections. While the political component behind
allegations of corruption and resource grabbing must not be ignored, authentic
corruption does exist and diligent efforts must be taken to investigate accused
individuals – if these individuals are innocent, then their exoneration is a
preordained conclusion.
Notes
[2] Malaysian Foreign Minister Named In Macc
Investigation Into Sabah Timber Corruption, Sarawak Report, April 05, 2012
[4] Illegal logging claims ‘exaggerated’, says
Sabah as Swiss probe UBS,
The Malaysian Insider, September 07, 2012
[10] Clare Rewcastle Brown : Malaysians say
their country is corrupt,
Malaysia Chronicle, March 01, 2011
Nile Bowie is a Kuala Lumpur-based American writer and photographer for the Centre for Research on Globalization based in Montreal, Canada. He explores issues of terrorism, economics and geopolitics.
