"My village will be submerged,” said Diana, who is part of the Taskforce Against Kaiduan Dam (Takad).
Diana’s home is in Kampung Terian, one of the 13 villages in Penampang and Papar affected by the RM3bil Papar Dam.
Eleven days before Nomination Day, caretaker chief minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal said the mega-project would go ahead if his coalition won the Sabah snap polls.
“I don’t want us to face a water shortage in future. Water is still an issue in Papar, and with developments in Kota Kinabalu, the supply would not be enough,” the Parti Warisan Sabah president said.
The Papar Dam is a hot issue in the Sabah polls, especially among voters living in Penampang and Papar, which are two districts close to Kota Kinabalu.
Even though the Warisan Plus government has cancelled the Kaiduan Dam located in Penampang, it is going ahead with the Papar Dam in Papar.
Shafie also claimed that the Papar Dam was not the Kaiduan Dam but anti-Papar Dam activists did not buy his argument.
They said it was the same dam as it flowed through the Papar river. They alleged that the Warisan Plus government had merely renamed the dam.
Several parties and candidates contesting in the state constituencies in Penampang and Papar have declared that they are opposed to the Papar Dam.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) promised it would halt the mega-project if it won the Sabah polls.
Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) vice-president Datuk Johnny Mositun declared that he would block it if he secured the new Limbahau seat while Joseph Suleiman, the Sabah STAR/Perikatan Nasional candidate in Moyog, has actively campaigned against the dam.
Diana’s village in Penampang is upstream of the Papar river. There are 25 houses made of bamboo and wood in the village famous as part of a trekking trail from Inobong substation, part of the Crocker Range National Park.
The Warisan Plus government has insisted that not an inch of Penampang would be affected. That is why Warisan politicians such as its deputy president Darell Leiking, who is contesting in Moyog, do not oppose the Papar Dam as he said it was located in Papar and not in his Penampang parliamentary seat.
But Diana disagrees.
“They should visit the area and see the Papar river. Based on projections from experts, our village in Penampang will be affected. Our way of life will be submerged together with our houses,” retorted the 38-year-old farmer and Pacos Trust volunteer.
Diana explained that her family, who had lived in the area for seven generations, would lose their heritage forever.
“We rely on the jungle produce we can harvest from our surroundings. If we are displaced, we won’t have the jungle and rivers as our backyard, which is our ancestral land,” she said.
For example, she said the Rusap Gigiman plant, which could be found along the pristine rivers in the area, was boiled with water and drunk as a tonic.
The seven-months pregnant Diana drinks the brew every day as it makes her “body fresh and energetic.”
“Our knowledge of traditional Kadazan medicine will be lost as we won’t be living next to the source of these plants and animals,” she said.
The anti-Papar Dam activist is wondering why the caretaker Warisan Plus government refuses to consider environmentally sustainable alternative measures that would not cost thousands of people their lives or land.
She said there were alternatives proposals such as a direct water intake reservoir, which was a cheaper and more practical solution to Sabah’s water supply woes.
For 12 years, Diana has been fighting the planned construction of the dam on her ancestral land.
Her first thought when she heard that the Sabah government under Barisan Nasional wanted to build a dam in her backyard was that her community would face the same fate as the villagers who were displaced by the Babagon Dam in Penampang.
“The villages where the Babagon Dam was located were submerged,” she said.
She fought the Barisan Nasional government when it proposed the Kaiduan Dam. In GE14, the anti-dam proponents together with the opposition parties such as Warisan and DAP opposed the dam.
“We believed the Warisan leadership wanted to stop the dam. We are angry, sad and disappointed as we supported Warisan and yet it broke its promise,” she said.
Diana said Takad would campaign against Warisan Plus in the snap polls just like how it fought against BN in GE14.
Will the voice of dissent drown the winning chances of politicians who were against the Kaiduan Dam but favoured the Papar Dam?