Written by lainie at 07:52 PM on March 7, 2007 in Rants, Daily Life.

Went to Nat's website, Jelas.info, and saw link to photos I took on Monday with his camera. He uploaded ALL of them, and apparently it numbers over a thousand :/.

It's all uploaded into a set on Flickr: Kg Berembang 5th March.

Monday was quieter. Just some physical struggles. Much less violence compared with today, where the police and developers (samsengs with hardhats) drew blood.

Anyhow, I have about an hour before I head out, so here goes. Gah.

=====


One of the villagers there, and talked to people a lot. She was the one making phonecalls etc.


Strangely enough, a lot of them had these hammers hooked to their backs. Hammers, that were not required in the work they were doing today since the heavy machinery is used to tear down houses. Hammers are mostly used to hit...................nails..... Which implies..... Construction. Actually, this implies something else entirely.

Look ma, my skull has a hole in it. More hammers.


RELA wankers, who had no business here in the first place, hiding from the sun and looking for a spot to sit. Where? In one of the few buildings they had not torn down. Yet.

Irony.....Wankery.....Hypocrisy. And asking to be bitchslapped.
It's Wednesday now. I watched this building they're resting in being torn down, after the police (who also had no business being there) forcibly pulled people out. The police, of course, also seeking shade in it beforehand.

In fact, those weren't the only ones hiding there. RELA has more than four extra-kau idiots.


RELA has a lot of idiocy to spare.


Speaking of RELA idiocy...Observe man in RELA uniform with extendable baton in hand.


...which he thought appropriate to casually show off after a while, during the "negotiations". Yeah, okay. So you have a stick in your hand. Whatever. Doesn't mean that much when we're surrounded by all the chipped stones and bricks you created when you tore down the houses.


Truck driver that carts away stuff (I believe in other circumstances you will be inclined to call such action robbery), was very proud to be there and have his photo taken. You can almost feel the cotton emanating from the otherwise vacant space in his skull out of the screen. Or rather, I can.


Sometimes, protesting gets tiring and you need to sit down.


Negotiating AGAIN.


Contractor who negotiated and basically said "okay, we need to show we did work, we'll clear that land way over there, before the lamp post, that no one uses". Then of course proceeds to order all the dudes driving the heavy machinery to clear land elsewhere, inching forward all the time. Pretended to be nice. Really, just a liar the whole time.


Tian Chua, politician, was arrested today for "attempted murder", which is a serious, and ridiculous allegation. I heard even he's kinda surprised, and that the chief police at the station he was brought to is his ex classmate. That must have been bizarre.
Far as I understand, there was a barricade erected in the morning to keep volunteers out, and Tian Chua drove a car through it. ....Hmm.

Pity he wasn't around, would have been handy to have him do it again this evening. Instead, we entered from another construction site, sneaking in through a hole in the barricade......Not pleasant.

You can read the version of Monday on the Tian Chua website (blog?) over here.


I only took a photo of this guy cause of the chair, and he looked so weird. One of the developer dudes. Ish.


I saw this from a distance, and curiosity took over (click for full sized panorama). I invited myself over there and asked if I could take photos.


How is it spelled? Sembahyang? I was watching her pray, kneel, get up, kneel, get up, with the RELA, developers, and rubble in the background. I don't know. This house got torn down today.


Couldn't stop taking photographs of her. There was definitely a feel of exploitation / intrusion while clicking away.


Sucks to be poor.


They're just coming up close all huggy from behind because they really, really like you.


Kids casually sitting on the machinery to prevent them from being used.


He was picking through the stuff from the demolished homes and stacking them up....Pretty shy about having his photo taken.


I call this a "supposed to be pathos" photo. Baby, check. Elderly, check. Children of tender school going for "so-called life changing government exam" age, check. Young woman, check. All females in the photo, check. But all some people see are squatters.


RELA on the march. Herd mentality, to be insulting to animals that travel in packs.


Villager who could only mostly yell in frustration at RELA about her kampung - volunteer (I understand this is lawyer Latifah Koya?) in the background is making phone calls trying to work things out.


I think the guy in white tshirt (very vocal dude - Seng? Sing?) got arrested today. For a while I could hear him shouting a lot, to put it loosely: that the policemen were taking bribes, and what if some rich man bought over your land and kicked you out, which is what happened here, etc. Then I couldn't hear him anymore. Later some people were saying some "Seng" dude got arrested, I presume it's this one.


Guy in white shirt yelling at people, again. Would you, if all these armed people in uniforms who have been demonstrating a disregard for the law (let's not focus on the irony yet) and copious amounts of idiocy, were all staring at you?


Notice how this dude's uniform has black stripes. Where his name and identification must have both accidentally, simultaneously dropped off. Kinda makes you wonder if they just bought a uniform and pretended to be RELA, because I was having a good ol laugh over at the government website that states the function of RELA last night. Things happen here by accident a lot. Like how houses accidentally fall down when they're not supposed to.


SB dude filming everything. "Hantu celaka paling besar", I believe he's known as. Must have been because he was overheard asking people to arrest some volunteers. SB = Special Branch.


Kid pretending to be police. By pretending to shoot the police. Today, some children were roleplaying. I overheard "Saya jadi polis, saya robohkan rumah!".... -____-"

As for my photography skills.....Let's just say, after a few hours of using the camera, I finally notice it has an lcd screen.

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As for today? Let's leave that for another blog post. It wasn't pretty, and I have no photos.

....I've had a few things going on right now that's upsetting me, which I'm actively ignoring because I don't want to think about it. And my god, I'm not even talking about Kg Berembang. I'll be in Wayang Kata III tonight.

And I can't find my damn cellphone.

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