WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2001

Missing Swiss activist in Borneo may have perished: friends, family

By Eileen Ng

Swiss activist Bruno Mansen, (2nd left) with a Nomadic Penan (far left), is arrested by an imigration officer, second from right, since he landed his motorised paraglider outside the Chief Minister of Sarawak's house March 29,1999 in East Malaysia. Manser had been fighting against the logging industries which has devastated their rain forest. AP

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - The family and friends of Swiss environmental activist Bruno Manser, who disappeared on Borneo island 15 months ago, believe he may have perished, a Swiss official said Tuesday.

John Kunzli, secretary of the Bruno Manser Fund in Basel, said a second search expedition to Sarawak, led by Manser's brother earlier this month, failed to find any trace of him.

"It is very difficult for us, his friends and families, his office and companions in the struggle, to believe he is still alive," Kunzli told AFP in a telephone interview. He said Manser, a staunch defender of the nomadic Penan tribe and the rainforest in Sarawak, returned to the state on May 23 last year and had not been heard of since sending a letter to his Swiss girlfriend dated May 25. The activist, who would have turned 47 on Saturday, was planning to climb up Batu Lawi, a 2,000-metre (6,600-feet) sheer limestone pinnacle in Sarawak, but apparently never made that hike.

"It is possible that Bruno may have had an accident. Our worst fear is that he has fallen down the mountain in Batu Lawi, which is very difficult to climb but we have not found his body nor his belongings," Kunzli said.

He said Manser had fallen foul of the state government, which considered him a nuisance due to his work for the Penans. He said a month-long search in Sarawak organised by the fund last December was in vain, as was a second attempt led by Manser's brother, who returned to Switzerland 10 days ago. "For me, there is very very little chance he is still alive but we can not totally give up hope although sometimes it may be easier."

Kunzli said Manser had planned the trip to Sarawak as his last and intended to settle down with his girlfriend when he returned to Switzerland.

"After 12 years, he got a little bit tired... the idea is to stand with his friends probably one last time against the injustice, the illegal logging and the politicians oblivious to the plight of their own people."

Manser lived with the Penans for six years before being arrested in 1987 for encouraging them to protest against logging. He escaped from police custody and was reported to have slipped out of the state in 1990.

In March last year he returned to perform a paragliding stunt over Sarawak's capital of Kuching before landing near the residence of the chief minister. He was deported after that protest.

The Swiss embassy in Kuala Lumpur has sought help from the Sarawak

government to trace Manser but said Tuesday there had been no news. "The area of Sarawak is bigger than Switzerland, more than 40,000 square kms of jungle, so to search for him is useless. It's like the sea... there's no hope," embassy counsellor Bernard Pillonel told AFP.

 

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