Letter To The Whole World

Message by 17 Penan Leaders on Bruno Manser

Tong Tana, the Bruno Manser Fonds newsletter
December 1st, 2000

Bruno Manser is still missing. The Swiss Ambassador to Malaysia officially requested now the Government of Malaysia to assist in the search and rescue of Bruno Manser, the indigenous peoples rights activist and special envoy in the struggle of the Penan People, who went missing in Sarawak over six months ago and whose presence in Sarawak was denied earlier by the Malaysian authorities.

The traditional Penan people of Sarawak, whom Bruno Manser supported for so many years, have now written a letter to the international community. Please read it and distribute their message

On behalf of the Penan people in Sarawak we write to all of you including relatives and friends of Bruno. We the Penan are his best brothers and sisters and friends with whom he stayed 6 years. Even though he is from another part of the world, we are very close to him, we treat him as our great grandparent and great leader.

He has now been missing for a few months. When we first heard the message of his missing, we all were worried and felt sad and lonely. However we keep on praying every time and ask for his safety. And we continue to search for him since the beginning until now, we will continue and try our best.

Here once again we want to remind you all brothers, sisters and friends:

Whatever happened to him, please don't give up. Continue the struggle and carry on his good work until we can gain the victory for his behalf and our people.

We are putting a great hope on you all to continue to support us in this situation.

Keep strong, all of us should continue his vision hand in hand. Even though he is no more to be seen, in our heart and mind he is still with us and shares everything with us. We hope he is still alive and will return to us again.

Whenever we think of him, we feel sad and lonely. Because we put our hope in him as a great person to bring change for our people and the world one day. Now we hope you all are still standing beside us with great spirit. Mountain and sea are between us and keep us apart, but in our heart and struggle we are one and close to you.

We promised to ourselves to keep this struggle continuing and to remember him in our life forever until our next generations.

We hope people all over the world are putting pressure on Taib Mahmud and the Malaysian authorities and logging companies because of his disappearance.

We hope more people visit the place where he went missing and help us search, though for sure the authorities must blame us for this, but we hope you all will support us.

These are our words. We are still strong and speak with one voice.

We the 17 headmen having signed above on behalf of all Penan communities in Sarawak with one heart and struggle to assert our support and keep on our fight to continue his mission and vision.

May God hold his hand and keep him alive.