Sarawak’s river of shame

Deathly silence about 50km Rajang logjam

The 50km-long logjam on the mighty Rajang river last week earned space in the New York Times environmental affairs blog and mentions of articles in:

• Sarawak Report
• Sarawak Headhunter
• Hornbill Unleashed
• Under the Banyan blog by tbsBidayuh.

The NYT report Logjam hints at forest crimes said the Rajang crisis

“

brought new focus to the issue [of forest management], and new questions about whether the government official who runs just about everything on Sarawak, the Malaysian portion of the island, is abetting — and profiting from — an unfolding environmental disaster.

In addition, the NYT spotlighted “the impressive investigative reporting” of Sarawak Report for its continuing exposés of the Taib Mahmud family fortune, and its extensive business and property dealings.

Former Taib aide ‘hounded to death’

In its latest report, Sarawak Report reported the death of the Ross Boyert, 60, who for over 12 years was the sole manager of office buildings and residences owned by the Taib family in San Francisco and Seattle, This included the FBI’s top security Abraham Lincoln Building in Seattle, for which Boyert had been given a maximum personal security clearance to enter.

Boyert was found dead in a hotel room last week with a plastic bag tied around his head. The Sarawak Report article tells of how Boyert had spoken of being hounded and subject to systematic harrassment over several years after he was dismissed by Taib’s son-in-law. When asked by Sarawak Report how he had been affected by the Taibs, Ross had replied:

They did to us what they did to the Borneo Rainforest, decimation, destruction, rape, plunder, betrayal. Ruination for ruination’s sake. I don’t see a future and that is absolutely what they wanted.
» Taib’s Former US Aide Found Dead