Lukas Straumann, the Director of Swiss-based NGO Bruno Manser Fund, is visiting Tasmania’s forests today and speaking at a public event in Hobart tonight. Bruno Manser Fund is an international human rights and environmental organization that champions the rights of the indigenous peoples of Borneo.
Straumann will launch his book ‘Money Logging’, an investigative account of what former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called ‘probably the biggest environmental crime of our times’—the massive destruction of the Borneo rainforest by Malaysian loggers.
The Bob Brown Foundation welcomes this opportunity for a leading international organisation to present to Tasmania the controversial links we have with Borneo rainforest loggers.
“In 2005 Bruno Manser Fund was contacted by Bob Brown and Adam Burling when the Sarawak logging company, Ta Ann, was awarded a lucrative deal for Tasmania’s forests . Since then, we have worked with Bruno Manser Fund to oppose Ta Ann’s practices in Tasmania and Sarawak, and exposed the exported corruption and rainforest devastation that Malaysia’s Taib family, involved in Ta Ann, brings to Australia”, Bob Brown Foundation spokesperson,” Jenny Weber said.
Jenny Weber has accompanied Lukas Straumann in the past week, from Adelaide to Canberra, where Straumann released Bruno Manser Fund’s new report, ‘The Adelaide Hilton Case – how a Malaysian politician’s family laundered $30 million in South Australia’. The report exposes the corporate connections behind Sarawak’s former chief minister, and now Governor, Taib Mahmud’s company Sitehost, which owns Adelaide’s $50 million Hilton Hotel.
In Hobart tonight, Straumann will shed light on the connections fostered by Australia on behalf of Sarawak’s controversial figure Taib and his family.
“The timber barons of Sarawak have thrived under the Taib regime. At a breathtaking pace, they are decimating forests in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. Ta Ann, which has close ties with the Taib family, plays a central role in the ¬destruction of Tasmania’s natural forests,” Lukas Straumann said.
“Of all the Malaysian timber corporations, Ta Ann has the closest ties with the Sarawak former chief minister. The company was founded in the mid-1980s by Taib’s cousin, Hamed Sepawi; the PBB politician Wahab Dolah (the PBB party forms Taib’s principal political power base); and the businessman Wong Kuo Hea.
It was immediately granted huge logging concessions in Sarawak—and, of course, there was no such thing as a public call for open bidding. As chairman and principal shareholder, Taib’s cousin, Sepawi, is the strong man at Ta Ann. Insiders, however, suspect that Sepawi is merely a front man for Taib himself, who controls the corporation from behind the scenes,” Straumann said.
Public Event last night (Friday)
6pm Gretel Room Elizabeth St Pier
Guest Speakers Bob Brown, Christine Milne, Lukas Straumann and Peg Putt.
A short film with images from Sarawak logging regions by Matthew Newton.
EARLIER on Tasmanian Times …
• Ta Ann’s Abdul Taib Mahmud and money laundering … ?
• O’Brien in Comments: How long can our Premier maintain a faux ignorance of the depth of a foul culture that gave us wood chips, pulp mills, managed investment schemes, poker machine monopolies, poisoned wildlife in the countless millions, Paul Lennon, etc. etc. ? Please Premier help cleanse Tasmania of the stain of greed, graft, ignorance and stupidity that holds Tasmania back as exemplified by Lennon. The people will vote you consul for life, bronze statues of you will grace the parliament lawns and your name will go down in history as the one politician who made a real difference, or maybe not. Perhaps we would all be better off following Abbott/Dutton/Abetz’ prescription for happiness, investing in coal, oil, armaments, fear, perpetual war, terminal poverty for some and unbridled greed for others?
SATURDAY, September 12 …
• Senator Senator McKim to request meeting with World Heritage Committee
• The Age: Taib laundering scandal could be tip of the iceberg A Swiss NGO went public this week with allegations that the family of prominent Malaysian Taib Mahmud had laundered $30 million through an obscure Australian company called Sitehost Pty Ltd. Sitehost owns and operates the Adelaide Hilton. There is a sea of black money swishing about in Australian property markets – with a blind eye conveniently turned by our elected representatives and the bureaucracy – but the Taib case is special. Taib Mahmud is no ordinary Malaysian. He has been chief minister of Sarawak province in Malaysia for 30 years, during which time nearly 90 per cent of the primary rainforest has been logged and its locals swept from their homes. One of Taib’s many roles has been Sarawak’s head of resource planning and environment. Former British PM Gordon Brown has described the destruction of Sarawak as ‘‘probably the biggest environmental crime of our times’’. As for Taib, here is a man whose official salary has been a tad over $200,000 but whose family members have amassed holdings in 400 companies in 25 countries. One of these holdings is Sitehost. Taib’s daughter Jamilah Taib and her husband Sean Murray are directors. Jamilah is also incidentally Canada’s richest woman and resides in the second most expensive house in Ottawa …
SUNDAY, September 13 …
• O’Brien in Comments: Another spring day in Tassie. Serious allegations aired and not a single one of our so called elected representatives prepared to stand up and do the job citizens expect of them, for which they are paid handsomely. Not a single one troubled by conscience or a sense of duty. More like rats darting about the sinking ship that is ta-ann/forestry and the complicit ‘conservation’ agencies that facilitate the greed-head obscenity that is ta-ann/forestry in Tassie. Where are our elected representatives? Nowhere to be seen or heard, whistling Dixie whilst looking the other way with their ears plugged and their wallets fat. Where is Murdoch’s repetitive complicit rag? Looking for headlines about footballs, or bylines about greed-head councillors rorting rates for thousands of dollars. What about big time villains rorting State Treasury for millions/billions of our dollars? Where is our corruption commission? Looking for excuses absolving themselves of any responsibility no doubt.
For Tassie’s sake Mr Premier do the job you take the filthy lucre for, muster some courage and rid us of these greedy old men and their tame public service stooges sapping our Tassie and thieving our property. If Tassie’s Liberal/liberal party is unwilling, incapable or compromised through direct interest and association, perhaps the Labour/labor member for Lyons can make the call? With a single press conference she could set the wheels in motion and show us all who is Premier in waiting. Forget about Green he is like a K-tel record, worthless old and tarnished, yesterday’s politician. Remaining silent, dismissing it all as a lot of bad noise hoping it will soon pass, like the $60 000 000 invisible Tassie Fox scam or the related $52 000 000 Tasman Three (Two?) Capes scam may not work all of the time.
