(PROGRESS) Report Finds Corrupt Elite Looting Cambodian Forests
Report Finds Corrupt Elite Looting Cambodian ForestsHere is a news announcement from Global Witness. Global Witness "exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems, to drive campaigns that end impunity, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses." Global Witness was co-nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for its leading work on ‘conflict diamonds' and awarded the Gleitsman Foundation prize for international activism in 2005.
Cambodia's corrupt political elite is stripping the country of its natural resources, according to a new report published by UK-based NGO Global Witness on June 1, 2007.
The report, ‘Cambodia's Family Trees', reveals for the first time how family members and business associates of the prime minister and other senior officials are illegally destroying Cambodia's forests with complete impunity.
Launched ahead of an international donor-Cambodian government meeting on future aid to Cambodia scheduled for June 19-20, the report calls on the donors to start using their influence more effectively.
"Despite the huge amount of aid flowing into the country, the political culture of corruption and impunity means that Cambodians are still among the world's poorest people," said Global Witness Director Simon Taylor. "When are the donors going to start addressing the asset-stripping, mafioso behaviour of the current regime?"
The report details the activities of Cambodia's most powerful illegal logging syndicate - known as the Seng Keang Company - which is controlled by individuals related to Prime Minister Hun Sen, Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Chan Sarun and Director General of the Forest Administration Ty Sokhun.
This syndicate is the driving force behind a major illegal logging racket in Southeast Asia's largest lowland evergreen forest, Prey Long. Under the guise of a government-mandated rubber plantation, it has illegally logged vast tracts of forest, yielding a timber haul worth more than US$13 million annually. Its targeting of resin trees has damaged the livelihoods of hundreds, if not thousands of families living in the area. As the report shows, leading members of the syndicate are heavily implicated not only in illegal logging, but also in tax evasion, kidnapping, bribery and attempted murder.
Illegal logging in Cambodia not only fills the pockets of the political elite; it also funds the activities of a 6000-strong private army controlled by Hun Sen. The Brigade 70 unit runs a nationwide timber trafficking and smuggling service, catering to prominent tycoons, that generates profits of US$2 million to US$2.75 million per year. A large slice of these profits goes to commander of the prime minister's Bodyguard Unit Lieutenant-General Hing Bun Heang.
Despite evidence of widespread illegal activities and human rights abuses by Cambodia's armed forces, some donors, notably the US, have resumed military assistance to the government.
"If Cambodia's donors want the country's natural resources to be managed in a way which benefits the Cambodian people, then they must confront the high-level corruption which allows groups such as the Seng Keang Company and Brigade 70 to operate," said Taylor. "At a minimum, they must link all non-humanitarian aid to reforms that will make the government more accountable to the country's citizens. They can start by insisting that a credible anti-corruption law - which the government has been stalling for over a decade now - is passed immediately."
"In a few years time, Cambodia will become an oil-producing country," added Taylor. "It is not too late for donors to insist that the government lay the foundations for transparent revenue management. Without this, however, Cambodia's projected oil billions are likely to be siphoned off by corrupt politicians and their cronies."
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Cambodia's Family Trees can be downloaded from http://www.globalwitness.org
Labels: CAMBODIA, CORRUPTION, FORRESTS
posted by MrK @ 5:33 AM
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