Hedgehogs Suffering At Carrefour

RSC's letter published in MalaysiaKini below on Feb 6 this year:

I refer to the letter Hedgehogs suffering at Carrefour.

For all those like Soraya, who witness such cruelty and exploitation of animals, I encourage you to please:

1. Ask to see the store manager right away and inform him that you are a customer and disgusted with them being cruel to animals this way. Tell them that you are going to write a letter to their head office and media to complain.

2. Ask for the e-mail addresses of the head office in Malaysia and overseas and write a strong letter against the company that is abusing the animals. Copy your letter to all media. It helps to show the media that there are people out there who feel strongly against animal abuse.

3. Copy also your letter to Peta (People's Ethical Treatment of Animals). Peta will send a letter to Carrefour. They are very faithful in doing this and very efficient. For e-mail addresses, see here.

4. Once your letter has come out in Malaysiakini, send a copy as a follow-up to the manager to whom you complained, the company’s Public Relations Department and its head office.

Don't bother complaining to the Wildlife Department or the Veterinary Services Department (VSD). This is Bolehland where our former PM is now suddenly suffering from amnesia when called to account all his past misdeeds, ‘judge-fixing’ and corruption before a royal commission.

Unless we throw out this Barisan Nasional government in the coming elections, don't count on any of these governmental bodies set up to look after animals to pay any attention to your complaints even though its their job to act on complaints.

During an official meeting with 30 animal welfare activists at the Housing and Local Government Ministry in February 2006, I asked why the VSD never responded to pleas from Sheena's neighbour to save her.

Sheena was an Alsatian kept starving and tied up by a cruel engineer. Sheena's neighbour tried to feed the dog. Her pathetic photo after her death was splayed all over the newspapers, breaking people's hearts.

The VSD representative there was livid with anger and called the newspapers ‘liars’. But then I recounted my own experience with the VSD. A senior enforcement officer had told me they ‘had no time to deal with such complaints as they had other more important things to do’.

Caught red-handed, the VSD representative at the meeting could not answer except say that the enforcement officer was right and he began mumbling some things. I concluded with disgust then that despite there being laws in the country that the VSD should act upon a complaint of animal abuse, they are now blatantly saying in the presence of 30 over people that they can't be bothered to do anything. Such is the arrogance of the Barisan Nasional government.

What's more, I received a phone call on my handphone from this senior enforcement officer at (I don't know how he obtained my number) threatening me to be quiet. I lodged a police report and wrote letters to the Housing and Local Government Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry. Until today, I've never received a reply from any of these government ministries.

So don't count on the government doing anything to help animals or lost children or the elderly or the disabled or the weakest in society. They are too busy raping our forests for the big bucks from timber, too busy hiding scandals, too busy with all their corrupt activities to bother actually running the country for the good of the country and its people and animals.

Please vote for the opposition in the coming elections. It does not matter what symbol you tick as long as it is not BN’s. Even if it is a Chair, Table, Tree or Lamp-post symbol, just tick ! Any of them would be better than the government we have now.

People must understand that a change in leadership is healthy for a democracy. That is why the US president can’t stay longer than two terms. Only in Malaysia do you have old cronies and their children still clutching on to their lucrative positions - this because the ‘rakyat’ have been made blind, deaf and dumb through the mainstream media which is a puppet on a string.

ROAR ACCUSES GOVT MINISTRY OF PROFITING FROM EXPORT OF MONKEYS

Another Election Campaign Trail story from MalaysiaKini. Vote wisely!

MALAYSIAKINI : Conspiracy to export monkeys for profit: NGO
Bede Hong | Oct 19, 07 7:28pm

A wildlife conservation group wants the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to look into alleged business dealings involving a minister and a former director-general where wild monkeys are being exported for profit.

The group said the ACA must investigate Environment Minister Azmi Khalid (photo) and former Department of Wildlife and National Parks DG Musa Nordin, who retired last October, for abuse of power.

Malaysian Animal Rights and Welfare Society (Roar) believes that a company linked to the two is the beneficiary of a export programme created under the guise to trim down the population of long-tailed macaques in Peninsular Malaysia.
Roar submitted a memorandum to ACA office in Kuala Lumpur today calling for investigation into the matter. Accompanying the group were DAP and PKR officials.

“We are angry that the animals are being exploited by the very ministry tasked to protect them,” Roar pro-tem chairperson N Surendran told a press conference today.

Surendran said ACA should investigate whether a recent lifting of the ban on the export of macaques was motivated by profit.

In June, against international convention, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry lifted a 23-year ban on the export of macaques, saying there is an overpopulation of the species.

In July, Roar submitted a memorandum to the minister demanding the reinstatement of the ban and a halt on all pending macaque shipments. They also lodged a police report against Azmi and ministry officials for violating Section 92(f) of the Protection of Wildlife Act 1972.

The police forwarded the case to the ACA last month, saying it has elements of abuse of power.

“We found this very suspicious. All animal rights groups and wildlife experts found it very strange. The question is why the ministry is bent on exporting these monkeys? I will give you the answer right now... money,” said Surendran.

“The ministry wants to make money out of it, and the ministry is allowing a private company to make money out of it. The question here is why is the Malaysian environment and natural resources being plundered in order to profit some company,” he said.

Surendran referred to a news article published by the Star on Sept 11, where Musa admitted he was “indirectly involved” in the monkey trade.

“We have information that the decision to export the monkey when Musa Nordin was still the DG. We have information that there is connection with the company. He has close contacts with the Department of Wildlife. Clearly there was some hanky panky going on there with elements of corruption,” he said.

According to Roar, each exported monkey brings in RM250. The macaques are exported, mostly to China, for animal testing and vivisection.

Roar alleged that the export contract of over 20,000 monkeys annually was given by the Environment Ministry to a company, Sunny K-9 Sdn Bhd. A check revealed that the company, based in Ipoh, is a dog-training academy.

Surendran also disagreed with the Environment Ministry figures that there are over 250,000 monkeys living near urban centres and over 500,000 monkeys living in the jungles.

“We question the figures because experts found that it was not possible to calculate the precise number of monkeys through the ministry’s methodology. I feel the figures are grossly over-estimated to justify the lifting of a ban,” said Surendran.

Surendran said the ministry should pursue alternative ways to reduce the macaque population including sterilisation, relocation and humane culling.

Greenpeace Takes On A Malaysian Timber Giant

First of RSC's election campaign stories : Below is a story from Corpwatch.org from March 2004

"The Untouchables - Rimbunan Hijau's World of Forest Crime and Political Patronage," a searing report issued by Greenpeace International, profiles Malaysian timber giant Rimbunan Hijau ("Green Forest"). A billion-dollar business owned by Sarawak tycoon Tiong Hiew King and his family, Rimbunan Hijau "appears to be protected by an extensive and well- established network of political patronage and media control," according to the Greenpeace the report.

Tiong's ties with the "political elite" and his former position as a Malaysian senator representing the Chinese-dominated Sarawak United People's Party have blurred the distinction between government and logging interests, Greenpeace charges. This, the report added, has led "to changes in legislation that favor corporate activities and which result in the disregard and repression of many actors within civil society."

Tiong has since made forays into the media business, and is the owner of three newspapers: Malaysia's Sin Chew Jit Poh, Hong Kong's Ming Pao and Papua New Guinea's National newspaper, among others. Interest groups have in the past charged that his control of National, in particular, helps the tycoon influence public opinion over his Papuan businesses.

Rimbunan not only dominates Papua New Guinea's logging industry, the company also has interests in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Malaysia, Vanuatu, Indonesia, New Zealand and Russia. The Greenpeace report focuses particularly on Rimbunan's logging activities in Papua -- where its activities have long been the target of criticism by local communities and environmentalists. Papua's annual $100 million timber exports are largely destined for China, Japan and South Korea.
Although a number of its logging permits have been declared unlawful by government investigators, no action has been taken against its 60-plus companies doing business in Papua.

Some of these logging subsidiaries have also managed to avoid open bidding on logging licenses, possibly due to its "close connections to Papua New Guinea's political elite," according to Greenpeace.

Meanwhile, the environmental organization reports that Papua's prime minister has been "directly involved in the logging industry and his deputy has been criticized in an Ombudsman Commission report for 'arbitrary and irresponsible' interference in directing the unlawful allocation of logging concession to Rimbunan Hijau."

Despite these revelations, enforcement is almost non-existent and the same commission found that the head of the Environment and Conservation Department supported the timber conglomerate, Greenpeace charges.

Two weeks after Greenpeace issued its report, Papua New Guinea's forestry minister, Patrick Pruaitch took out advertisements in the country's two main daily newspapers to deny Greenpeace claims that Rimbunan Hijau had been logging without legal permits.

"All logging operations in the country are legal," Pruaitch said in the advertisements.

Pruaitch said suggestions that illegally felled timber was being exported were "libellous and malicious" and defended the Rimbunan Hijau Group as "one of the most committed logging companies in PNG".

The Greenpeace report also points out that Rimbunan's influence extends even further. In November 2003, a Papua airline was ordered by the company to only fly Rimbunan-approved passengers to its logging concession area and to deny travel to any non-government organization.

Military Links
Elsewhere, Rimbunan's Indonesian subsidiary PT Rimbunan Hijau Jaya, has been accused by Greenpeace of using its ties with the Indonesian military to threaten locals opposed to its logging plans.

Rimbunan's negligent logging practices appear to be widespread and not just limited to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

In the Solomon Islands, Rimbunan has also faced criticism from residents and interest groups for environmentally destructive practices, illegal logging and other irregularities such as under reporting of log receipts, and payments made to parliamentary members.

In Malaysia, Rimbunan owns a 20 to 25 percent share of the timber industry. Its activities there are well known for infringing onto native customary land rights, according to Greenpeace.

Similar to the situation in Papua, Malaysian government officials and police work in the interest of logging companies, according to Greenpeace. Faced with inaction by authorities, native communities have blockaded logging roads, denying access to timber companies.

"Police and forest department officials have arbitrarily arrested and detained those indigenous people who put up any form of protest, even though such protests are undertaken within the confines of their own lands and they have legitimate rights under the law to such forms of protest," it Greenpeace said.

General Elections : On The Campaign Trail

I'd like all of you who have ever tried to do something right for animals or even children or the helpless in Malaysia to ask yourselves honestly, in your heart, whether you are satisfied that the very govt bodies set up are doing enough for the most helpless in Malaysian society.

Please don't be fooled into thinking that Opposition leaders cannot run this country. There are many capable Opposition leaders and the moral that needs to be learnt by Malaysians is that no one should be allowed to stay in office for too long as ultimate power always corrupt. Such is human nature. This is why in the US, even the President cannot serve longer than two term no matter how popular he is.

The honest people who are frustrated with the police, judiciary and controlled mainstream media have no avenue to voice their complaints and are going to the streets. Sadly, for this 'crime' they are and then thrown in jail - simply for speaking up for truth and justice.

Please vote for change in this coming elections. RSC will be featuring many separate stories from the alternative media to educate Malaysians on how important this coming general elections is for all Malaysians. This is no time to stay on the fence.

Why is RSC, an animal welfare movement speaking about the general elections, because we find that it is getting increasingly difficult to help animals and the weakest in Malaysian society due to the rampant corruption that is so bad that society has lost its pride in a work well done. Instead its all about 'what is my cut', 'what's in it for me'? and not what is best for the country.

Read the stories posted here and see for yourself how this disease called CORRUPTION is eating away at all our lives - even the lives of those fence sitters.