The resuscitation of the controversial Bakun Dam as the result of an agreement to build a nearby aluminum smelter is the latest chapter in a long running saga to push forward the environmentally sensitive project closely linked to the longstanding Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud and his family.

The mammoth dam, one of the cherished mega-projects of former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has already wiped out 23,000 hectares of virgin rainforest, delivered the timber into the hands of timber barons and displaced 9,000 indigenous people. It is also a textbook example of how the New Economic Policy, the affirmative action programme to improve the economic well-being of its bumiputera, instead concentrates riches in a few hands.