Baru Bian

Baru Bian (born 9 September 1958) is a Malaysian politician and lawyer who has served as Member of the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Ba'kelalan since April 2011.

Baru Bian was born in an impoverished Lun Bawang family on 9 September 1958, to Bian Labo (father) and Takong Taie (mother) in Long Lopeng, Sarawak.The ancestry of Baru Bian can be traced back to Berunut area, near the Adang river, where the latter is the tributary of the Limbang River.

All the genuine Lun Bawang people should be able to trace their ancestry to one single common ancestor named Terur Aco.

Baru Bian and his six siblings are the twentieth generation since the first Lun Bawang.

He is the third child and the eldest son in the family.

Both Baru's parents were pastors.

Baru's father, Bian Labo was trained at Lawas bible school which was under the Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) church.

Baru's family moved from one village to another because his father was posted to different villages every year.

Brought up in a Christian family since childhood, Baru was taught of discipline and doing the right things by his father.

By the age of seven or eight, he followed his father into the jungle to learn hunting and fishing.

As he became older, he would learn jungle survival skills, geography and boundary of the ancestral lands, and memorise twenty generations of ancestral names.

He attended Primary 1 to 2 at Long Lellang (1966 to 1967), Primary 3 to 4 at Long Semado (1968-1969), and passed common entrance examination at Long Napir (1970 to 1971).

After that, he attended Limbang secondary school until Form 5.

At one point, he would need to wear modified school blouse left by her sister for the secondary school.

He need to hike in the jungles for three days before reaching Lawas and another day journey to reach Limbang.

His experiences during journeys through the jungles and mountain streams led him to understand the value of native customary rights (NCR) for pemakai menoa (territorial domain) and pulau galau (communal forest reserve) and also the environmental protection.

After completing his secondary education, he served as a temporary teacher at SMK Medamit, Limbang from 1979 to 1981.

He taught geography, History, Physical Education and General Science there.

His passion towards native land rights had led him pursued his tertiary education at Institut Teknology Mara (ITM), now Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor in Diploma in Law (DIL).

His uncle, Libat Langub, who was a former student at ITM, encouraged him to study law there.

During the year-end school holidays in 1980, Baru Bian interviewed his father and his uncle Lasong Labo about the history of their family's NCR land.

He drew the boundaries of their NCR land and signed by the village headman.

He went to Melbourne to further his studies on Law in 1985.

He applied for scholarship from ITM but was denied.

Therefore, he decided to take a study loan instead.

The map later proved to be useful in fighting against six logging companies encroaching their lands in Berunut from 1986 to 1990s.

He attended Kolej Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang for Form 6 at Tanjong Lobang, Miri, Sarawak.

He got a satisfactory result in GCE Ordinary Level examination.

He subsequently obtained Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 1986.

After his graduation in Australia, Baru decided to come back to Malaysia to serve the needy instead of applying for permanent residency in Australia.

Upon graduation, he became a trainee in a law firm named Rashid & Lee in Kuala Lumpur for six months before the law firm stopped paying allowances due to financial difficulties.

He then continued his training at Eddy Chung & Co and was employed there until he returned to Kuching in 1988.

Baru was subsequently admitted to the Malayan Bar as a lawyer and solicitor.

By 1990, Baru became a partner in the firm of Messrs Anthony Ting, Baru Bian & Co. in Kuching, Sarawak.

Baru taught himself about native customary rights (NCR) law through Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), an NGO led by Harrison Ngau Laing, an environmentalist.

Baru would later become a legal advisor for SAM.

He also served as the State Chairman of PKR of Sarawak from December 2009 to his resignation from the party in February 2020.

He became the first ever federal minister of the Lun Bawang ethnicity in the Malaysian history.

He served as the Minister of Works in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad from July 2018 to the collapse of the PH administration in February 2020 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Selangau from May 2018 to November 2022.

He is a member of the Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) and was a member of People's Justice Party (PKR), a component party of the PH and formerly Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalitions.