Defying Sarawak’s ‘White Rajah’ has paid off, says activist

Gan Pei Ling Gan Pei Ling Updated 6 years ago · Published on 3 Dec 2017 11:00AM · 2 Comments

Lukas Straumann says there were times when he felt like giving up, but local communities in Sarawak inspired him to carry on. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Nazir Sufari, December 3, 2017.

DESPITE stepping down as Sarawak chief minister almost four years ago, Abdul Taib Mahmud is far from forgotten, at least for one environmental activist, who is determined to ensure the “White Rajah” is held accountable for the alleged embezzlement of billions of ringgit during his reign.

Dr Lukas Straumann, the executive director of Swiss-based environmental watchdog Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), has spent much of the last decade trying to track down and convince Malaysian and international authorities to look into the Taib family’s immense wealth.

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Comments

  • We're still figuring out Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) and Dr Lukas Straumann's real motive.
    But on the surface, you fermented hatred and instigated boycott when you badmouth Malysian forest and demonise oil palm farmers, when Sarawakians just want to uplift their families from poverty and earn a decent livelihood. This is not different than other for-profit ecotaliban NGOs from Europe like Greenpeace and WWF, where all their activities have been seen as anti-progress, anti-development and anti-science. 1] If you're serious about forest, then why EU remaining forest cover is just 5~30%, a mere fraction of Indonesia's 51% and Malaysia's 67.6% -- but they won't reforest & replant trees? 2] If you're serious about climate then why EU being the historical emitters must reduce GHG emissions to an average of five percent against 1990 levels (called pre-2020 action), as signed in 2012, known as legal climate obligation Kyoto Protocol -- but they won't.

    Posted 6 years ago by Kuasa Rakyat

    • Preposterous. And rhetorical. Not only Sarawakians, anybody would want to come out of poverty. What do you think happened in the past 35 years since white rajah has been around?

      Posted 6 years ago by Julian Chung