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Monday, 26-Apr-2004 8:48 AM SPECIAL REPORT 'Tengku' Adnan and The Business of Death Adnan Mansor, the self-proclaimed Tengku, has embarked on a cemetery expansion project. Plans were drawn up, the project rushed through without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Study done, and awarded to a company he has an interest in. If this is not a case for the Anti-Corruption Agency (BPR) to investigate then we do not know what is. Adnan says that, for what he calls 'an extension' of the Bukit Kiara Muslim Cemetery, an EIA is not required even if this cemetery itself began as an illegal burial ground, mainly for Indonesian and Bangladeshi immigrants who had the misfortune to die in this 'foreign' land. Gradually, locals began using it and, in time, it became the convenient cemetery of choice for, in particular, Taman Tun residents. It was only in 1998 that it was finally gazetted as a Muslim Burial Ground. The cemetery 'extension', which is in fact a whole new project altogether, is to take place on two pieces of land adjoining the existing cemetery. This undulating area was covered in dense forest and undergrowth and it buffered the 3,500 residents of the Desa Kiara Condominiums from the effects of the cemetery. Designated as 'Open Recreational Space' in the Draft Structure Plan Kuala Lumpur 2020, the green buffer zone was a natural sound barrier that absorbed the noise and pollution generated by the high volume of traffic that flows constantly on the Damansara SPRINT Highway and the Taman Tun Bypass. The forest not only screened the lower floors of the Desa Kiara apartments from the view of the existing cemetery and offered privacy from public view, especially of the swimming pools, it also soaked up heavy rainfall and cooled and shaded the area. It was also home to several species of birds, tree shrews, monkeys and a variety of reptiles - not only snakes and the odd monitor lizard. On
5th November 2003, without any notification whatsoever, the bulldozers
moved in and reduced this last remaining urban island forest of
the Penchala-Segambut Forest Corridor and green lung of Desa Kiara
to a barren wasteland of red laterite earth. Desa Kiara Residents objected that the cemetery would come right up to their doorstep. They would have objected to any cemetery extension. This just happens to be the Bukit Kiara Muslim Cemetery. Their objection is not just about the removal of their buffer zone and the resulting obvious consequences of higher levels of traffic noise or to the dust and pollution. They object, most of all, to the noxious odours of decomposition that they are now subject to without the buffer zone trees to deodorize the air. Graveyards pollute the soil and ground water with the bacteria and pathogens of human decomposition. Graveyards pollute the air with the odour of decay and affect people psychologically. The fear factor is not exclusive to any one racial group. Graveyards are spooky. Decomposition is the basis of all fertilizer. Have you ever noticed how lush everything grows in graveyards or have you ever noticed the pong of 'countryside smells' from 'natural' fertilizer? Well, the residents are now subject to worse noxious odour when the wind is in their direction. It is an established scientific fact that, as the earth cools in the evenings, the gases of decomposition exude from the ground and rise in plumes resembling ethereal mists. These are Hydrogen Sulphide (smell of rotten eggs), Putrescine (putrid odour), Cadaverine (smell of rotting flesh) and other gases collectively called mercaptans. Adnan Mansor and his cronies - Raja Nong Chik and the contractor, Mat Saidin (Mat 'Stalin'), who was once the erstwhile driver of Tan Sri Ghazali Shafiee - are partners in the business of constructing and operating the cemetery for the next 15 years. The RM6.7 million project is to have 11,000 graves, turfed a la Arlington Cemetery, no less, and covered in identical marble slabs. Adnan also arrogantly revealed to the Desa Kiara Residents who met him at his office in DBKL that a further 1,000 existing graves of the 'pendatang' (immigrants) would be exhumed and reused. So the desecration of the pendatang graves, that are not even ten years old yet, is an acceptable practice - 'Children of a lesser God' perhaps, as, it would seem, are the residents of Desa Kiara. It appears that they are expected to accept, without murmur, the new graveyard and the sight of daily burials from their balconies, living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms; the sight of graves from their car parks, from their swimming pools and open areas. The children's recreational area and jungle gyms face the existing graves even now. Imagine how much worse it will be with the 'in your face' new graves that they are so determined to have. Are residents, many who are expatriates, able to insensitively and calmly carry on sunbathing within sight of burials? Would the mourners mind if some residents had a beer and barbecue on their balcony or strolled around the poolside in their skimpy swimsuits in full sight of sombre burial rites? With such regular burials taking place, will children become immune to the sight of corpses and continue playing or will they become emotionally disturbed and plagued with nightmares? Do the proponents of this graveyard care at all about the feelings of the condominium residents, young and old, who will be forced to watch funeral after funeral, day in, day out? Or do they stop to think how the mourners may feel with so many angry onlookers staring at them as they bury their dead? The residents' objections are not just the expected bad 'Feng Shui' argument and the drop in the value of their property. Clearly, arrogant Adnan Mansor cannot be bothered about cultural sensitivities or their investment. What he is more concerned about in the name of the Muslims of Segambut, Taman Tun and the surrounding areas is the substantial profit he and his business partners stand to make out of this venture into death. A matter of extreme importance that he has failed to consider are the far-reaching health consequences that could affect not just Desa Kiara people but those downstream in PJ and Shah Alam. Not everyone dies purely from old age. These days it could be AIDS, Avian 'flu, TB, Cholera, Typhoid, Dengue, West Nile Fever, etc. Burial in the Muslim tradition has to be quick with the corpse wrapped in a shroud. Coffins are not used, hence such burials are termed 'green burials'. Nothing wrong in that when such burials take place at a good distance from populated areas. However, when the graves are placed next to human habitation, there is a greatly enhanced risk to health. Where the existing cemetery is located at present residents already experience foul odours now that the forested buffer zone has gone. These odours are the smells of gases emanating from the decomposing corpses. Residents are breathing in toxic fumes and potentially pathogenic organisms from current burials. With the graveyard brought to their doorstep, this will be many times worse with the inevitable risk that disease will be spread. The potential for an epidemic, particularly here in the tropics, must not be ignored. The health hazard this presents to this neighbourhood is one of our greatest fears and there can be no justification whatsoever for allowing this exceptionally dangerous situation to arise. A halt must be called now to this crazy proposal and a new site found well away from any area of human habitation so that the dead can be properly buried in a garden of quiet repose with due consideration to the living and with no risk of contamination or spread of disease. In addition, the forested area must be restored to provide protection from the existing cemetery, to reduce the heat, to absorb much of the contamination and stop the run off into the Sungai Penchala. This can be a recreational forest with large broad spreading trees and quiet tracks available for walkers and joggers. It should not be an organised park but a pleasant area of land that is quiet and beautiful to the eye, and, therefore suitable to be located next to the existing cemetery. No new graves should be added to this cemetery nor need there be any exhumations. Leave the dead in peace and respect the living by providing the green buffer zone that has always existed between the two. Thereby harmony can be re-established. FURTHER READING: The Bukit Kiara Cemetery Controversy (Malay Mail 24 November 2003) The New Cemetery Project: Adverse Impacts on the Diasa Kiara Community
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