Why Would Sibu Resident Charles Siaw Help KL Tower Managers Destroy Sibu BASE Jump And Drive Away Regular International Visitors To Sibu?

Sibu BASE Jump is an annual BASE jumping event off Wisma Sanyan in Sibu. It was established in 2009 and steadily grew each year. It became an awesome bonus event for international BASE jumpers who were travelling to Malaysia to attend the annual KL Tower BASE jumping event. The local people of Sibu were always the most welcoming and friendly people that BASE jumpers experienced throughout Malaysia. Previous Sibu Residents always worked hard adding their personal touch to give international BASE jumpers an extra special welcoming feeling in their town. Sibu BASE Jump always greatly enhanced BASE jumper’s adventure and experience in Malaysia.

Sibu BASE Jump was also a bonus for the KL Tower BASE Jump event. It attracted a greater number of international BASE jumpers to travel to Malaysia who found it more worthwhile when they had both KL Tower and Wisma Sanyan to jump from. Sibu BASE Jump participants usually became far superior participants for KL Tower then those only going to KL Tower, as they would become well-tuned after jumping off Wisma Sanyan in Sibu for a few days. Both events had a common BASE Jumping organiser Gary Cunningham, who was a world leader in BASE jumping events off buildings. He would ensure Sibu BASE Jump participants would always be given priority into the KL Tower BASE Jump event to ensure their trip to Malaysia was worthwhile. The two events complemented each other well and it was a win-win situation for both events.

So why would KL Tower managers request their new BASE Jumping Organiser Avery Badenhop in 2018 to ban Sibu BASE Jump participants from KL Tower? And why would new Sibu Resident Charles Siaw help KL Tower cover up their requested ban, and help destroy the Sibu BASE Jumping event?

It all started off as efforts by long standing BASE organiser Gary Cunningham to eliminate the occurrence of BASE jumpers slamming into KL Tower each year and getting seriously injured, along with eliminating other areas of negligence from the event which also led to BASE jumpers getting injured. When Gary was successful in doing so there was a chain reaction by event personnel who had vested interest for their negligence to continue. It led KL Tower management to obliviously do everything it could to bring carnage back into their event in their bewildering quest to vanish world leading BASE organiser Gary Cunningham from Malaysia. New Sibu Resident Charles Siaw would also be lured in to decaying safety and integrity of the Sibu BASE Jumping event, disrespecting and driving away regular Sibu BASE Jump participants. Most likely Sibu Resident Charles Siaw was led into believing he was doing a righteous thing, but from the perspective of most people it was only seen as the destruction of Sibu BASE Jump with a reckless disregard for the high level of respect that the high risk activity of BASE jumping always demands.

What Actually Happened?
Was The Request To Ban Sibu Participants Real?

In the lead up to the Sibu BASE Jump 2018, many Sibu BASE Jump participants received a message from KL Tower’s new BASE Jumping Organiser Avery Badenhop, informing them that KL Tower had requested that he ban Sibu BASE Jump participants from the KL Tower event. Avery told some participants that he refused to go ahead with the requested ban, but told them to keep low-key at the KL Tower event and not to wear any Sibu T-shirts at KL Tower. Avery told other Sibu participants that he would not ban them, but it would be looked on negatively (or words to that effect) if they went to Sibu. And some Sibu participants were just outright banned, which Avery told them was due to KL Tower banning Sibu participants.

Certainly, either KL Tower management requested the ban Sibu participants, or new KL Tower Representative, BASE jumping Organiser Avery Badenhop was claiming that they did and he was using it as an excuse to exclude some Sibu BASE Jump participants from KL Tower, and discouraged others from going to Sibu. It did not really make sense for Avery to got to the effort to portray his new employers in such a bad light if they never requested that he ban Sibu participants.

Within a week of Sibu BASE Jumping participants receiving these messages, over 50% of Sibu BASE Jump applicants cancelled their participation in the Sibu BASE Jump event. While some Sibu BASE Jump participants had legitimate reasons for cancelling, it seems the requested ban of Sibu BASE Jump participants had the desired effect.

Public Exposure Of KL Tower's Request to Ban Sibu BASE Jump Participants

After Sibu BASE Jumping Organiser Gary Cunningham heard about the requested ban, and confirmed with Sibu BASE Jump participants about the actual messages sent to them from the new KL Tower representative Avery Badenhop, he publicly exposed KL Tower managers plot to destroy Sibu BASE Jump. It is totally unacceptable for a tourism icon of Malaysia like KL Tower, or their representative, to attempt to destroy extreme sports tourism in other parts of Malaysia. The new KL Tower management had already proven themselves to be highly negligent with their BASE jumping events, in a very similar way to previous KL Tower management who were naively determined to bring a fatality and other carnage to their events back in 2010. The requested ban of Sibu participants only further demonstrated KL Tower management as people not fit for their position to be tourism ambassadors for Malaysia.

The suspected culprit for requesting the ban of Sibu BASE Jump participants was relatively new KL Tower Events Manager Mohd Dzulfiqhary Ibrahim. When Dzulfiqhary started at KL Tower in 2016 he was very dismissive of warnings from then KL Tower BASE Jumping Organiser Gary Cunningham that their event was organised in a very negligent manner. It had become very clear to Gary that there would be no support from new KL Tower management to help clean up the negligence and step up event safety back to at least the minimum expected level. Other BASE jumpers also pointed that Dzulfiqhary seemingly had no care when it was being explained to him soon after the start of the event that the ramp cover had come loose and was causing BASE jumpers to tumble off the edge. The issue could easily have resulted in serious injury or death. It was not the only installed apparatus that failed during the event which could have easily led to death. It was one of worst events in memory at KL Tower with a hired local safety crew being non-responsive, refusing to do critical tasks, and otherwise sabotaging event safety. We had to get volunteers to do the work of the hired crew. BASE jumpers, and their families and personal crew suffered a mass case of food poisoning which destroyed their event and holiday. This came about after KL Tower introduced new force marketing practices that were seen as a form of extortion which included forced purchase of their food package.

The following year in 2017 Dzulfiqhary became a driving force behind trying to decay event standards and safety to an unacceptable level, while Gary was on a mission to clean up all the event negligence in an effort to eliminate many types of accidents regularly seen that the event. Dzulfiqhary was more focused on his agenda to continue his new force marketing extortion practices for BASE jumpers families and personal crew which had destroyed their event the previous year and drove many people away. The usual problems persisted with the event so-called safety crew supplied by Aziz Ahmad turning up stating that they had no knowledge, training or instructions other than to show up there. In the past they would always be seen to obliviously incite incidents due to their lack of knowledge and experience, and were in no way suitable for the event. Gary came prepared for this, turning up with knowledgeable and trained volunteers that could actively help with incident prevention.

After Gary neutralised the negligence of KL Tower event contractor Aziz Ahmad, and KL Tower management in 2017, to successfully eliminate a number of serious types of accidents from the event, Dzulfiqhary dismissed him from any further involvement with the event. Gary publicly exposed the unacceptable level of insistent negligence happening at KL Tower’s BASE jumping events in an effort attempt to prevent new KL Tower management continuing down the similar grossly negligent path that had brought serious injuries and death before. So it was quite likely Dzulfiqhary, who remained in total denial, was seeking further vengeance on Gary instead of fixing all problems.

There is no proof that the request to ban Sibu BASE Jump participants came directly from KL Tower Events Manager Mohd Dzulfiqhary Ibrahim, but there are a very limited number of other people that it may have come from. It could have possibly come from new KL Tower CEO Datuk Rozlan Mohamed who started at KL Tower in early in 2018. Or Avery Badenhop could have made it up purely by itself. But why would Avery go to so much trouble to inform BASE jumpers of the situation, and why would he portray his new employers in such a negative way? Anything is possible.

KL Tower Tries Cover Up With Threats Of Prosecution

KL Tower managers would only deny that they made any request to ban Sibu BASE Jump participants themselves. They also declined to make their new KL Tower Representative, BASE Jumping Organiser Avery Badenhop answerable about any of the messages he sent.

While KL Tower Management seemed very happy with their new BASE Jumping Organiser Avery Badenhop and his representation of them to international BASE jumpers, they would be very displeased that Gary Cunningham exposed it to the greater public. KL Tower Management sent Gary a letter strongly threatening prosecution if he did not make a public apology for his published claims, which KL Tower management had insisted were false. Presumably they were referring to Gary's claims of insistent negligence of event contractor Aziz Ahmad and KL Tower Management, and also claims of their representative Avery Badenhop informing Sibu BASE Jump participants that KL Tower Management had requested they get banned from KL Tower. The letter also demanded that Gary take down all social media sites related to the event, which included comments from previous KL Tower staff who strongly agreed with Gary's statements. The letter specifically pointed out that it would end up being a very high financial cost to Gary if he did not comply with their demands. But Gary's response was not quiet what they were expecting. He published a query asking what claims were actually false, and then reiterated through all previous claims of negligence with further details of why they were true. Gary also demanded KL Tower Management make a public apology for either their request to ban Sibu participants, or their new KL Tower Representative - BASE Jump Organiser Avery Badenhop telling Sibu BASE jumpers that KL Tower had banned them. Of course, KL Tower management would never respond. They were too new to have any understanding about the insistent negligence with their BASE jumping event, and they were not about to admit that either they had requested a ban of Sibu BASE Jump participants, or their new representative Avery Badenhop was portraying to Sibu BASE Jump participants that they did.

Sibu Resident Charles Siaw Lured Into Covering Up KL Tower Managements Requested Ban Of Sibu BASE Jump Participants

After Gary Cunningham publicly exposed KL Tower’s requested ban of Sibu BASE Jump participants, new Sibu Resident Charles Siaw flew to Kuala Lumpur for to have a meeting with KL Tower management. The Sibu Resident seemed focussed on helping KL Tower management try to cover up the requested ban, without doing anything to help the plight of Sibu BASE Jump participants. KL Tower management and Sibu Resident Charles Siaw started to falsely promote that KL Tower supported the Sibu BASE jumping event, while some Sibu BASE Jump participants were not welcome at KL Tower. It was disappointing that the Sibu resident was not willing to stand up for his town of Sibu, or for the few BASE jumpers who were still coming to support the Sibu BASE Jump event. Being a very new Sibu Resident, Charles Siaw had no real idea about BASE Jump events, or the people involved in the event. He never went to any effort to find out reality and he seemed very easily led by KL Tower management and event contractor Aziz Ahmad.

Sibu Resident Charles Siaw returned to KL Tower a couple of months later to again promote KL Towers fake support for Sibu BASE Jump. While KL Tower managers were getting support from the Sibu Resident to cover up their request to ban Sibu participants and their persecution of highly experienced BASE organiser Gary Cunningham, Sibu BASE Jump was not getting anything in return. Many Sibu BASE Jump participants were faced with the dilemma of flying all the way to Malaysia and not being permitted to jump at the prime event at KL Tower. In previous years, the previous KL Tower managers were not really in support of Sibu BASE Jump, but there was still strong cooperation between the events. In comparison it made the claims of new KL Tower management that they supported Sibu BASE Jump look quite farcical. The Sibu Resident probably failed to realise that the relatively new KL Tower management had no idea about BASE jumping themselves, as they had eradicated the people who had the vast wealth of knowledge about BASE jumping events. He was being led to disrespect international BASE jumpers coming to support Sibu, and being led led to destroy Sibu BASE Jump in future years as well.

KL Tower Managers Remain In Strong Denial

After Sibu BASE Jump 2018, Gary Cunningham set up a meeting with KL Tower management to discuss which of the statements he published they were insisting were false and threatened to prosecute him for. The meeting started with the new KL Tower CEO Datuk Rozlan Mohamed stating that he believed there were no safety issues, and that he believed that world-leading BASE Jumping Organiser Gary Cunningham was the only one who believes there was. It was a very bold claim for the new KL Tower CEO since he had never had any exposure to BASE jumping before. Gary had logged and analysed numerous incidents at KL Towers events for more than a decade. They included a lot of horrific carnage with bloodshed and multiple broken bones, and a fatality from a high speed impact with the ground that Gary was in close proximity to. No one had more intimate knowledge of all the potential issues and how and why they happen than Gary did. It was assumed Datuk Rozlan’s comment was an attempt to insult Gary, implying that his wealth of knowledge about BASE jumping accumulated over 25 years, 3500+ BASE jumps he had completed, and over 60 building BASE Jumping events, was meaningless. But it only showed up Datuk Rozlan’s great level of ignorance. He was either very easily led, or a ruthless businessman willing to sacrifice the safety of visitors to KL Tower to achieve his personal agenda. After Gary went to extraordinary measures in 2017 to eliminate tower strikes and other types of serious accidents from the event that had caused horrific injuries in the past, it was beyond any understanding why new KL Tower managers were doing everything they could to bring the carnage back to the event.

It was no surprise a few days later that the KL Tower event produced a record number of tower strikes, a record number of people getting hung up on objects on the side wall of the landing area, a return to canopy collisions, and a number of other issues. Gary had returned home to Australia before the event started, but he saw video of the jumps online during the first morning of the event. Within seconds into watching the video, he could see they were set up in a manner that guaranteed tower strikes would happen. He immediate wrote to KL Tower management informing them of the problem, along with several other safety breaches that were likely to result in injury. Despite the number of incidents, and blatant safety breaches, KL Tower management would remain in strong denial, with their new BASE jumping organiser claiming that there was only one small incident at the event. It was no surprise to see that the new BASE Jumping organiser crashed in himself, due to his lack of local knowledge of the site. One of the most important parts of being a BASE Jumping Organiser is to strongly educate participants about all the known issues and common mistakes that people have made in the past, to help prevent them from having the same accidents. The new KL Tower BASE Organiser could not fulfil his expected duty of care as he greatly lacked local site knowledge and experience.

Instead of trying to prosecute Gary, the new KL Tower management should be the ones prosecuted for breaching their duty of care to visitors of KL Tower by insisting to set up their BASE jumping event in a manner that ensures accidents will happen.

In the meeting KL Tower management also went into strong denial that they issued any request to ban Sibu participants. They agreed to bring their representative Avery Badenhop into the meeting to be answerable about the messages he sent to Sibu participants stating that KL Tower had requested to ban them. But KL Tower management wanted to discuss the matter privately with Avery first, so the meeting was adjourned until later that day. Minutes later KL Tower management messaged Gary stating that Avery would not face him, and there was no continuation of the meeting. It is not certain if they even communicated with Avery about it. It was KL Tower managers one chance to clear the matter up, but they decided to protect Avery (and/or themselves).

Months later when Gary caught up with Avery and queried him about who requested the banning of Sibu participants, Avery declined to comment, citing his prison code of silence that he was conditioned to from his years of being incarcerated in the USA. He seemed the perfect person to carry out a rouge KL Tower managers dirty work. They would both protect each other.

Sibu Resident Charles Siaw Sabotages Future Sibu BASE Jump Events

For unknown reasons new Sibu Resident Charles Siaw seemed to greatly disrespect Gary Cunningham after he stood up for BASE jumpers and the town of Sibu against the corporate bullies of KL Tower and their new representative Avery Badenhop. Gary had worked diligently over 10 years to build up the Sibu BASE Jump event and promote Sibu to the world. He always focused hard on maximising event safety and the enjoyment that international BASE jumpers would get from the event. He had been a star performer over the ten-year history of the event completing a record of over 400 BASE jumps himself off Wisma Sanyan. Gary had worked for an even greater number of years trying to maximise the safety and enjoyment of the KL Tower event as well. A lot of the work at KL Tower was focused on protecting the event, and the image of KL Tower from the erratic ideas that KL Tower management often had. In 2019 it was relayed to Gary that the new Sibu Resident had requested that he not returned to Sibu. It is in line with what Malaysian BASE jumper Aziz Ahmad had already told Gary about the new KL Tower management wanting to prevent Gary from being able to return to Malaysia altogether. Presumably, Sibu Resident Charles Siaw made a pact with KL Tower management to eradicate Gary Cunningham from Malaysia after he got in the way of KL Tower management's and Aziz Ahmad's insistent negligence.

The Sibu Resident was perplexing very keen to reward Avery Badenhop for banning some Sibu BASE Jump participants from KL Tower BASE Jump 2018, and driving many others away from the Sibu BASE Jump event altogether. Sibu Resident Charles Siaw offered Avery the job of organising the next Sibu BASE Jump event, even though Avery had very limited experience at the location. Avery had been to Sibu once and inadvertently had never attended the Sibu BASE Jump safety briefing to learn about all the serious potential issues associated with jumping from Wisma Sanyan that had been learned about over the previous 10 years. Avery initially took on the job, and quickly drove away many of the regular Sibu BASE jump participants after he more than doubled the entry fees. Avery ended up withdrawing from the Sibu BASE Jump Organiser position after KL Tower made it financially unviable for him to continue organising the KL Tower BASE jumping event, so it was not worthwhile for him to come back to Malaysia just for Sibu. New Sibu Resident Charles Siaw had put a lot of misguided blind faith in Avery, and he was again let down. But still Sibu Resident Charles Siaw was determined to keep away world leading BASE jumping Organiser Gary Cunningham who had dedicated 10 years of commitment and loyalty to Sibu.

The Sibu Resident then turned to amateur Malaysian BASE jumper Aziz Ahmad to take over as prime BASE Organiser for the Sibu BASE Jump event. After 20 years of BASE jumping, Aziz still has a very low number of BASE jumps and a very limited skill set. His low level of experience and past negligence displayed makes him in no way suitable to manage BASE jumping events. Over the previous decade, it has always taken up a lot of time and effort of BASE Jumping Organiser Gary Cunningham to try to work around, or stem, Aziz’s insistent negligence. In 2019 Gary had commented in a BASE jumping forum how Aziz was always trying to get beginner BASE jumpers killed while being focused on profiteering from them. It was no coincidence that it again turned out to be true at KL Tower BASE Jump 2019 with Aziz almost getting himself and a beginner BASE jumper killed in a horrifying canopy collision.

In the lead up to Sibu BASE Jump 2019, Gary Cunningham tried to educate new Sibu Resident Charles Siaw about the number of serious issues that have been experienced during Sibu BASE Jump over the previous decade. These included multiple building strikes, canopy collisions, collisions with other objects, and collisions with the ground. They have resulted in multiple broken bones, dislocated joints, head and brain trauma, spine injuries, wrists and legs being sliced open, dents in cars and buildings, smashed windows, and a multitude of other issues. Since Sibu Resident Charles Siaw eliminated all the knowledge and education from the event that had been learned over 10 years, Gary inquired what his plan was to try to prevent all these issues which were bound to be repeated by the much lower standard of BASE jumpers that would be invited to the event. Charles would only respond that he was sure amateur Malaysian BASE Jumper Aziz Ahmad could handle it. Since Gary had also explained about Aziz’s continued negligence over the past decade, Charles was clearly indicating that he would totally neglect BASE jumping safety and not provide the expected duty of care.

To put it into more understandable context for Malaysians, it would be the same level of concern if Sibu Resident Charles Siaw suddenly declared he would get Jho Low to look after Sibu finances because Jho Low is very good at looking after money. It is something you just would not do unless you were very naive and easily led, or very corrupt. It is not certain which is the case of Charles Siaw. It is very disappointing to see Malaysian BASE jumping events go back to the unacceptable standards of the horrific past where beginner Malaysian BASE Jump Organisers were naively very determined to get novice BASE jumpers killed, with zero care of anyone involved. The best thing about Sibu BASE Jump in the past was that it was free from the chaos and erratic behaviour of KL Tower management. It was an event designed and managed by a highly experienced BASE jumper, and very intelligent Sibu officials, for BASE jumpers. New Sibu Resident Charles Siaw quickly adopted the same erratic behaviour of KL Tower management, and the insistent negligence of Aziz Ahmad. This combination does not mix well with the high-risk activity of BASE jumping.

Sibu Resident Charles Siaw decayed the event from one that had 84 international BASE jumpers from 17 countries completing a record 2032 jumps at the event in 2017, to an event in 2019 which had just 9 foreign BASE jumpers (plus a few more beginner Malaysians) where only around 200 BASE jumps were completed. Experienced regular Sibu BASE jump participants that would have come back to the event every year were driven away from the event. The local people of Sibu were deprived of seeing the vast array BASE jumping they loved to watch each year, and they no longer got to see their favourite BASE jumpers who had become virtual family. The event's new online application form stood out to knowledgeable BASE jumpers that event management had no idea what they were doing, and that they had a reckless disregard for BASE jumpers and the high risks of BASE jumping. Sibu had gone from a much-loved city for many international BASE jumpers, to a no-go zone. It is very disappointing that Sibu Resident Charles Siaw has undone the decade of efforts that past event organisers and previous wonderful Sibu Residents had put in to build up and promote Sibu BASE Jump, and the town of Sibu.

What could Sibu Resident Charles Siaw possibly be personally gaining from his destruction of Sibu BASE Jump for both international BASE jumpers and Sibu citizens?

With the very high level of naivety, arrogance, and lack of respect for BASE jumping that Sibu Resident Charles Siaw has displayed, he has no place commanding or administrating a high-risk BASE jumping event. BASE jumping must always be treated with the very high level of caution and respect that it demands. He is probably still totally oblivious to just how much of a dangerous man he is in regards to BASE jumping events. Why does he think that bringing back the naive and reckless methods of organising BASE jumping events that KL Tower used a decade ago will have a different result to the fatality and other serious accidents that the Alor Setar and KL Tower BASE jumping events experienced?