Pigs versus squatters
September 4th 2007. Paya Berembang looked like a battle zone. The local authority went there with an army of police personnels, FRU personnels complete with six water cannon trucks not to mention six excavators. Their mission was to get rid of thousands of pigs and close the farm that had been the source of environmental problem for a long time.
November 2oth 2007. Kampung Berembang also looked like a battle zone. MPAJ was there with its own army of police personnels, Rela members, FRUs, water canon trucks and of course the bulldozers as well. Their mission was to abolish Kampung Berembang squatter settlement that was home to hundreds of families for the last 30 years.
There were resistance at both places. Residences and pig farmers formed human barricades to protect their home and farms respectively, facing the fearless FRU personnels that were ever ready to march at slightest siren order.
But pigs and pig farmers in Paya Mengkuang are much luckier compared to squatters from Kampung Berembang. Not only the pigs and pig farmers had the support from MCA party officials to fight for their case, the police and the authorities finally pulled out from Paya Mengkuang and two other pig farmers new villages after some two hours of negotiation between MCA top leaders and state authorities. There was no arrest, no fighting, no shouting, no water canon spray and no casualty what so ever. That was how fortunate the pigs and the farmers at Paya Mengkuang.
On the controrary, Kampung Berembang folks had totally different fate. At the end of that fateful day, negotiations between human rights activists and MPAJ were not fruitful as has always been the case in other squatter demilition cases elsewhere. Pleas by the villagers had fallen on deaf ears. In the end, some 60 houses were demolished, and 23 activists and residents were arrested. Such is the fate of Kampung Berembang folks thanks to the Selangor government’s ‘zero squatters’ policy.
Read Malaysiakini reports about the pigs here and the squatters here.
Photos courtesy of Malaysiakini and What A Lulu.
[tags]pigs, squatters, Paya Mengkuang, Kampung Berembang[/tags]
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POSTED IN: Environment, Government, News, People
1 opinion for Pigs versus squatters
lulu
Sep 6, 2007 at 6:41 am
again, $$ reigns supreme.
in the case of Kg Berembang, there was a developer waiting to take possesion of that piece of land. when/after he develops the land, the council gets richer via land tax and [ahem! other ways?].
hence, the determination of the council men to robohkan houses.
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