The lengthy article published on August 10 describes the pint-sized Taib as Sarawak’s “Godfather” and “last Rajah”, and details claims of his purported manipulation of the hornbill state’s vast natural resources to stay in power.
Whistleblower site Sarawak Report was quick to pick up the report before subsequently adding Taib’s alleged purchase of positive publicity through British firm FBC Media as further ammunition to warn the chief minister that his days in power are numbered.
“Taib should be careful what he does to these innocent people, who have such justified cause to protest. Because now the world is on to him — his reputation goes before him,” wrote Sarawak Report yesterday.
In The Ecologist’s article, it was alleged that during his lengthy three-decade rule, Taib, his family and political allies had amassed massive fortunes through timber concessions and by dispensing land as “political currency”.
But it said an emboldened civil society movement and a growing anti-Taib sentiment, which reared its head briefly during the Sarawak state polls on April 16, may soon spell a change for the state.
“Three decades of government land seizures, rampant logging and oil palm expansion has decimated Sarawak’s rainforest and disenfranchised its native population. Yet, a seismic political shift is occurring, which represents real hope for Sarawak’s people and its beleaguered forests.
“Through the work of tireless activists, a reform movement is rapidly gaining ground and exposing the duplicity of the existing government, and its ‘Godfather’, the Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud,” journalist Alex Joseph reported for the magazine.
He also claimed of a heightened tension after news of Taib’s scandals were exposed, and called into question the death of the leader’s former aide-turned-whistleblower, Ross Boyert, who was found in a motel in Los Angeles with a bag taped over his head recently.
Joseph also wrote of the numerous allegations against Taib made in Sarawak Report, including seizures of native customary land and the illicit distribution of logging licences to Chinese timber barons as leverage to gain political support.
“Most logging permits have been awarded at grossly undervalued rates to private companies with political connections, generating meagre amounts of government income,” the article said.
It added that the alleged strip logging of Sarawak’s forests had destroyed the state’s environment and claimed that satellite images of its hinterland shows its primary forest cover at 10 per cent, and not 70 per cent as Taib had recently claimed.
“Taib’s effective formula of political patronage has been extended to almost every aspect of Sarawak’s economy, with his gilded family and allies being publicly listed shareholders on almost all lucrative land development and public works contracts, from hydroelectric dams to hospitals, road networks to luxury tourist resorts.
“Such concentration of money and power has led to staggering inequality, with indicators suggesting a rich-poor divide worse than Nigeria,” the article said.
But it said Taib’s dynasty, and that of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition he represents, may soon come to an end.
“With an effective opposition in the legislature, an emboldened civil society, international money laundering investigations and court cases piling up against members of Taib’s network, the existing system could well begin to unravel,” it said.
It pointed to Bersih 2.0’s July 9 rally in Kuala Lumpur and what it described as a more discerning electorate with an increased access to independent news, as signs of possible change to the country’s political landscape during the coming polls.
“In a society where political engagement and access to independent news is on the rise, the ruling government finds itself in an impossible situation: Increasingly difficult to defend the duplicity of status quo, yet unable to undertake significant reform for fear of losing power,” it said.
