Original report from Phnom Penh
10 January 2008
Environment Ministry and military officials in a former Khmer Rouge stronghold are stripping the forests of luxury hardwood, a local official told VOA Khmer Thursday.
Government forces are giving logging businesses free rein to strip the forests in Samlot district, Battambang province, the official, who asked not to be identified, said.
"Those involved in the luxury wood trade are high-ranking officials, those at the border, those soldiers, police and military police and their networks," said the local official. "They allow traders to do their business with no arrests. They are paid."
Cambodia has seen relentless logging of its pristine forests over the years. Much of the money goes to a small circle of politicians and business owners with close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen, a report by the monitoring group Global Witness says.
A Samlot official Thursday denied allegations illegal loggers were operating in his area.
"If I said no, you would not believe me," said Samlot District Chief Hem Sophal. "So you don't have to believe either me or the informants, you'd better come and see for yourself with your own eyes."
Government forces are giving logging businesses free rein to strip the forests in Samlot district, Battambang province, the official, who asked not to be identified, said.
"Those involved in the luxury wood trade are high-ranking officials, those at the border, those soldiers, police and military police and their networks," said the local official. "They allow traders to do their business with no arrests. They are paid."
Cambodia has seen relentless logging of its pristine forests over the years. Much of the money goes to a small circle of politicians and business owners with close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen, a report by the monitoring group Global Witness says.
A Samlot official Thursday denied allegations illegal loggers were operating in his area.
"If I said no, you would not believe me," said Samlot District Chief Hem Sophal. "So you don't have to believe either me or the informants, you'd better come and see for yourself with your own eyes."
1 comment:
and we wonder why such a horrific group like the Pol Pot could come to power. We also wonder if we had learn from history not to kill each other again. Because we don't see straight out warfare in the street we assumed bad times had passed and we learned our lesson from history to never repeat it again.
But today, looks like, we moving towards the same mistake. Blatant abuse of rich and poor, upper class vs lower class and poor and rural.
Pol Pot came to power with a vision to exterminate these nuisance in Khmer society. He hated feudalism, patronage system, power hungry rich folks who use to corruptions to abuse.
Looks like we heading towards the same situation again, these folks didn't learn a dam thing about why Cambodia had the genocide, now they want to create spur more crisis.
Where is the lesson learned? Let hope Pol Pot come back from his graves and strike all those corrupt people, (this time, maybe after spending time in narok, he won't mistake innocent one for bad one and just take the corrupt people away)
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