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ADDING INSULT TO INJURY!

The Injury: the Pahang govt has fenced up part of Krau, the country’s biggest wildlife reserve, thus making it next to impossible for orang asli to gain access to their ancestral land, and depriving them of their livelihood.

The Insult: comparing the orang asli to wandering animals.

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Malaysiakini

A Pahang Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) officer has apologised for insulting the Orang Asli community with his “wandering animals” remark and also made it clear it does not represent his department’s views.

Hassan Kassim came under fire recently for writing in a Facebook comment that the Orang Asli community should not be like “animals” – “where ever they roam in the forest, that’s their home” – and went on to call for a Felda-like scheme to resettle them.

Kassim made the remark when defending the Pahang government’s move to put up a wire fence along Sungai Krau to safeguard wildlife in the national park.
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Hassan’s comment has angered the Orang Asli community in Krau, which felt this added to the harassment the local community faces in Perhilitan’s fencing up of the Kuala Krau forest reserve.

Asked about this, Hassan said that he made “a private error” and that this was not done in his capacity as a wildlife park officer.

“I am sorry for the personal remark. I have no ill intention and made it without thinking properly,” Hassan said when contacted by Malaysiakini.

He added that he has also been chided by his Perhilitan department head for the remark. However, he declined to comment on Perhilitan’s policy to fence up the park.

Park officer apologises for insulting Orang Asli

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Malaysiakini

Pahang’s Orang Asli community has taken offence to a government officer’s remark that likens them to ‘wandering animals’.

A Krau national park officer had allegedly written in a Facebook posting after making this claim, that “… wherever there is a forest, that’s their land.”

The officer was defending a government move to put up a wire fence along Sungai Krau to safeguard wildlife in the national park.

Malaysiakini is withholding the name of the officer concerned pending the latter’s response.

However, the Orang Asli have claimed that this has affected their sources of livelihood.

“I am saddened by the statement that comes from a ranking government officer, saying we Orang Asli are not humans,” Tok Batin Mohd Kuang, 68, is quoted as saying in a statement from  the Jaringan Orang Asli Pahang (JOAP).

“I want to ask Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak: does he feel the same way?”

Regak, an octogenarian from Kampung Pian, also protested the statement, saying that the community was in the area long before the Wildlife Department arrived.

“As far as I know, we named the hills and mountains long ago,” Regak (right) said.

According to their oral history, seven Jahut villages have existed in the Sungai Krau area for a long time.

The land was gazetted in 1927 by the British colonial government and renamed Megas Tua, before being turned into a forest reserve.

JOAP activist Shafie Dris criticised the government’s move to fence up part of Krau, the country’s biggest wildlife reserve.

“The area has been our customary native land for years (as well as a) hunting ground… it carries our history and spirit,” Shafie said.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/246470

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