Let Us Not Forget about Bukit Koman Raub. (1)

The first time I heard of the use of cyanide as extracting agent for gold was in 2005. The matter was raised in the Pahang state assembly by a representative not from RAUb but from another area. In the 4 years I was in the State Assembly, not a single representative from Raub raised this matter. We only knew it as poison before. When we watched some spy thrillers, the spy caught swallowed cyanide pill rather than being interrogated and exposing their work.

Cyanide kills!

The rep spoke about health hazards arising from the use of cyanide. People are contracting incurable skin diseases, eye infections and a host of discomforting, seemingly permanent ailments. The matter was typically ignored as being not so important. The exco in charge of health did not respond adequately to the question raised.

Why was it ignored and why did it fail to attract the needed attention? As I looked at the issue, the cause of official apathy is this. The Cyanide using gold mine in Bukit Koman is largely seen as a localized Chinese issue, raised by Chinese activists in defiance against a Malay dominated government. UMNO and BN have cleverly structured the issue as such. That is why; the issue wasn’t gaining much traction among the Malay communities in Raub.

People will come telling you of anecdotes about the grandfathers and grandmothers, aunties and uncles living in Raub unaffected by this issue. Raub has historically been a gold mining area as do other parts of Pahang such as Penjom and so on.  So how come the people there did not suffer from any health hazards come the normal rebuttals.  because they did not use cyanide or if there had been health issues they were treated as acts of nature. We didn't have historical records on  the health conditions of the workers in the mines back then.

Response to the issue was further restrained because of the identity of the company doing the gold mine. It’s a company controlled by a powerful scion of a former MCA leader and having on its board powerful shareholders from the Royal Family of Pahang. The company was simply seen as unassailable because of the driving forces inside the company.

As a result any objections from a social point of view or value-free technical and medical objections were pushed aside in favour of ‘practical commercial reasons’. We cannot touch the company because its powerful. The government can always produce opposing medical assessments to rebut the issue.

The primary question is, do you want to solve this problem or not instead of debating the issue endlessly while real people suffer from real health hazards? It’s a question of political will. MCA did not have the political will. UMNO wasn’t adequately made interested.

Do we wait until it becomes a wider social issue involving the whole of Raub and people start dying and suffering like people around the Gold Mine in Buyat Sulawesi prompting us to only then take action?

Which makes the Bukit Koman issue what? It is essentially a case where a powerful elite comprising of powerful business people and powerful social elite collude to impose its will on a powerless and voiceless group of people. It’s simply a case of an oligarchy bullying and pummeling a powerless section of the community. From that day onwards, Bukit Koman was treated as a leper.

People who suffer from Leprosy are real people with real ailments but shunned by society. That is what happened to the residents of Bukit Koman.

What are the startling facts hitherto largely ignored by politicians and knowledge deficient government controlled media?

Some 50% of the residents suffered from skin diseases and eye irritations while another 40% experienced incessant coughing spells. Also discovered were eight cases of cancer among the respondents and that 35% of those interviewed suffered from such complaints as giddiness and lethargy. These are not isolated cases but occur on a sizable portion of the community as to raise alarm bells.

If anyone goes into the Bukit Koman Village, they can’t help but suffer shock at seeing a mining behemoth right in the centre of the village. It’s an eerie feeling. You don’t see birds or signs of animal life there. Residents tell of stories told by workers in the factory that there are no flies or birds inside the mine. They believed that’s caused by the high  level of toxicity in the air brought about by the use of cyanide up to 1.5 tons a day.

The same toxic environment is seen as the primary case for the health hazards to the people. The 300 or so families in the village of Bukit KOman live in clear and present danger. The cause for this danger is a revived gold mine barely a few hundred metres from the Bukit Koman village.

But Lets put this case in perspective. The people of Bukit KOman are not against the operation of a gold mine in their village. They oppose the use of cyanide that places the whole village in harm's way. 

To becontinued….