Cambodia: Journalists hounded by ‘forest mafiosi’

Relatives of prime minister implicated in intimidation

25.06.2007
By Andrew Wasley
Index for Free Expression

Illegal logging is rife in Cambodia, but journalists investigating the problem have faced violence and threats, writes Andrew Wasley

Journalists and environmental activists investigating deforestation in Cambodia are facing harassment, death threats and censorship after a report accused senior officials within the country's government of involvement in illegal logging, kidnapping and attempted murder.

In Cambodia's Family Trees UK-based campaign group Global Witness claims that leading figures in Cambodia's government - including relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen - are complicit in destroying large swathes of the country's remaining forests and is calling for international donors to conduct a thorough inquiry into the activities of this 'forest mafiosi' before pledging future development money.

The Cambodian authorities responded to the report's allegations by banning its publication inside the country, threatening Global Witness campaigners and harassing journalists reporting on the story.

The Prime Minister's brother earlier this month directly threatened Global Witness, stating that ‘if they [...] come to Cambodia I will hit them until their heads are broken’. Copies of the investigative report have subsequently been confiscated in Phnom Penh and several journalists targeted for covering the story.

Lem Piseth, a reporter with Radio Free Asia, received an anonymous death threat by mobile telephone after producing a piece looking at deforestation in the Kompong Thom province in central Cambodia. The caller accused Piseth of being insolent and asked if he wanted to die before stating that there would ‘not be enough land to bury you in’.

The journalist also claimed that whilst researching the story, he was followed by police and the military and was unexpectedly forced to leave a hotel by its owners, who provided no explanation. Piseth, fearing for his life following the death threat, has now fled to Thailand.

Soren Seelow, news editor with the French language daily Cambodge Soir, also suffered after publishing extracts of the Global Witness report in an article highlighting the pressure group's findings. Seelow was summarily dismissed by the paper's owners who claimed the article would upset the authorities and put them in a difficult position.

Employees on the newspaper subsequently striked in protest at Seelow's removal, and have now been told the newspaper faces closure.

Reporters Sans Frontières said: ‘It is obvious that the Global Witness report on the over-exploitation of the Cambodian forests is upsetting some people. Since this report was released, all media have been subjected to unjustified state censorship... [W]e urge the authorities to identify those who made threats [to Lem Piseth] so he can safely resume his work.’

The report alleges that one of the most powerful logging syndicates in the country is the Seng Keang Company, allegedly controlled by the Prime Minister’s cousin Dy Chouch; his ex-wife Seng Keang; her brother Seng Kok Keang; the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Chan Sarun; and Director General of the Forest Administration, Ty Sokhum.

Under the guise of a rubber plantation scheme, the syndicate is accused of logging timber from the Prey Long forest. The targeting of resin trees has also destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds, if not thousands of families living in the area, the report states.

Global Witness also claims that the company attempted to kill two community forest activists who had protested against illegal logging in Prey Long. It is alleged that the elite army unit, known as the Brigade 70, which reportedly has close connections to senior politicians, including the Prime Minister, has transported illegally logged-timber and other smuggled goods.

Environmentalists and human rights pressure groups are now calling on a ‘complacent’ international donor community to launch their own inquiry into the allegations - and support the prosecution of those involved. Failure to do so, argue campaigners, will effectively mean that international money will continue to be fed into a corrupt regime and ultimately offer little benefit to Cambodia's impoverished people.

It is not the first time the Cambodian authorities have attempted to stifle the findings of Global Witness; in 2005 copies of a previous report Taking A Cut were confiscated by customs officials at Pochentong Airport; in 2002 a senior Global Witness campaigner was beaten by a gang of masked men armed with sticks in Phnom Penh. Previous to this, activists had received threats by email from forest concession security staff.

Illegal logging, in Cambodia and across the world, is big business and frequently linked to organised crime and corrupt government officials.

SGS and Global Witness, along with the various reactions

18 June 2007
By Lim Pisith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata and Heng Soy

KI-media Note: The following report filed by Lim Pisith earned him a death threat. He is currently in hiding somewhere in Cambodia.

A number of forest observers and villagers’ communities in the Tumring area called the report issued by the Swiss company SGS a lie. The SGS report stated that the activities taking place in the Tumring area are not illegal logging activities.

Por Lay Hin, the representative of the Development Organization for Poor Rural Families – an organization which closely observes the forest activities in Tumring, reacted on Friday by saying: “I don’t know how they look at it to make them (SGS) say that there is no illegal logging, just look at the roads, you can see how worn out they are. If these roads were used by normal cars, it wouldn’t be in this (bad) shape. The activities taken by rubber plantation companies can be considered as development, it’s OK for them to cut off the trees and plant rubber trees instead. However, the other forest areas outside of the areas belonging to the rubber plantation companies, they are located in the Tumring commune, and these outside areas are covered by forest which are under assault by anarchic logging.”

Sao Kim, the former Tumring commune chief who retired a few months ago, said that the Tumring area is covered by 34,400-hectare of forest area, and the rubber plantations occupy 6,200-hectare only. He recognized that under his mandate as commune chief, logging activities did actually take place outside the rubber plantation (concession) area to harvest precious wood. But, Sao Kim said that the commune authority did not have the ability to prevent (these illegal loggings). Sao Kim said: “All the forest has been destroyed … the chief of the forestry administration is there already, we only heard (about the activities) and the top of (the logging activities) … is Seng Keang [Hun Chouch’s ex-wife and business partner].”

Mao Him, the president of the Tumring forest community, said, at the end of May, that illegal logging activities outside of the rubber plantation lands, are taking place daily starting since 2000 on. He also said that the Tumring forest located near villages have been anarchically logged for sale to businessmen and companies which received the government authorization to saw woods (for commercial sale) between 2003 and 2006. “Up to now, I heard the 60% (of the forest) has already been logged,” Mao Him said.

Suos Ven, a Tum Or villager, said that several thousands of resin trees, passed down between several generations in each family so that their offspring could collect tree resins for sale, have been logged and transported out between 2002 and 2006, and that the trees have almost all been logged already, and even wild animals such as deers, elephants, boars have fled from the area.

Lim Pisith (RFA): Your family is still collecting wood resin?
Suos Ven (SV): Before, we collected resin, but now there are no more resin trees. I am angry, but whatever I do, I cannot win over them, so there is no point of being angry, I just shut up.
RFA: During the logging, you did not go to tell them to stop?
SV: Before, we prevented them, but now they have the power, we cannot prevent them anymore.
RFA: Who did you say have the power?
SV: The people at the top are those who operate sawmills, they said that whatever they do, they paid the fees to Hun Sen already.

An anonymous forestry official in Tumring also recognized that logging activity outside of the rubber plantation does actually take place. “The activity still goes on, it does exist, but the activity is done in secret, this to tell you the truth because if I tell you that there is no (illegal logging) then you wouldn’t believe me.”

The Swiss company SGS published a report in the Koh Santepheap newspaper, a few days after Robert Thinin, the SGS company representative, gave his comments on TV about the Global Witness report titled “the family of the thieves of the nation” (Cambodia’s Family Ties in English). In its 3-1/2-page report bearing no clear date and published in the Cambodian newspaper Koh Santepheap on Friday morning, George Bottomlay, the deputy director of SGS in charge of service and institution, gave a clarification on the Global Witness report issued at the beginning of June 2007, titled Cambodia’s Family Trees (or Family of the thieves of the Nation in Khmer), based on SGS’ work between 2003 and 2005.

In this SGS report, it stated that the Tumring zone is not a protected forest, but it is a rubber plantation (concession area), and the activities taking place there cannot be construed as illegal logging. Furthermore, SGS discussed about the illegal logging involvements of a number of people reported by Global Witness, by saying that SGS does not have the mandate to investigate on the spot these illegal logging activities, and that it has to rely on evidence provided by the forestry department of the Ministry of Agriculture, reports provided to them (SGS) by the Ministry of Environment, and other reports from physical persons or various organizations. Furthermore, SGS said that it never received evidence from any organization bearing the names of the people named in Global Witness report.

In its 120-page report, Global Witness detailed about illegal logging, and the transport of woods by relatives and cronies of Prime Minister Hun Sen who are involved in the logging business in the Tumring area and the Prey Long forest, and that this group of people received millions of dollars in income each year from this illegal operation. One such company involved in the illegal logging is the Seng Kean company who is owned by Seng Keang – who is herself a friend of Bun Rany Hun Sen, Hun Sen’s wife – her ex-husband Dy Chouch – who is Hun Sen’s cousin – Dy Phen, the Military Police chief in Kompong Thom province – who is also a cousin of Hun Sen from his mother side – and Hing Bun Heang, the chief of Hun Sen’s bodyguards.

Global Witness also reported that bribe monies earned by army officers involved in the transportation of illegally logged woods were used to provide for Hun Sen’s 4,000 bodyguards brigade. Brigadier General Hak Mao, the commander of brigade 70 unit, is named by Global Witness for using his troop to transport wood out of the Tumring area to Phnom Penh. Agriculture minister Chan Sarun, and the forestry department director Ty Sokhun are accused of corruption for the sale of 555 forestry department positions, each position costing between $10,000 to $30,000, and Khun Thong, the brother-in-law of Chan Sarun and father-in-law of Ty Sokhun, was also colluding by using his family ties to obtain the privilege for the Seng Keang company – which he is also one of the partners – to perform logging in the Tumring rubber plantation.

Global Witness called for the sending of 9 individuals to face justice as stipulated in the laws dating from the UNTAC era, regarding jail and fine sentences that could be handed down to the criminals involved.

Global Witness Report To Help Open Hun Sen's Eye to 'Festering' Corruption

02 Jun 07
Sralanh Khmer
Translated from Khmer and posted online

Hun Sen's Cambodian Government has been deeply bogged down in all sorts of corruption pointed out by national and international circles after the prime minister arrogantly asked on Wednesday, "How this corruption looks like? Can anyone tell me where it is?" From now on, the prime minister surely will have a splitting headache reading a mountain of reports on corruption, documents that have piled up as high as Mount Everest because the corruption monitors have prepared them to open the prime minister's eye and make him see what really happens around him.

The forest crime report Global Witness released yesterday shows only the minister of agriculture and the head of the Forest Administration [FA], together with seven generations of the prime minister's relatives, as ringleaders behind the current waves of forest crimes in Cambodia. Although Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun and FA Chairman Ti Sokun softly denied the charges yesterday, this kind of rebuttal is not enough. The government must investigate, for this is an example of corruption that the prime minister has never seen and never thought possible, since he used to observe that corrupt persons never wear collars or bear tattoos on their foreheads for him to recognize them.

For the past few years, the prime minister who used to boast that he could see through everybody has been totally blind to corruption. For instance, he was blind to the recent corruption case in four ministries that caused the World Bank to suspend aid worth several dozen million dollars. Later, we do not know why the prime minister quietly took over $10 million from the national budget with which he paid back to the donors on behalf of the corrupt officials.

The general public has heard the prime minister roar like a Cyclops that if he could not suppress the forest crimes he would cut his own head. There was one time when the prime minister claimed as if he meant it that he would step down if he could not stop illegal logging. The prime minister has made this kind of vociferation for years and on many occasions. But forests continue to be decimated under the blows of the criminals' chainsaws. Just as exposed by Global Witness in its report yesterday, these logging criminals include a maternal cousin of the prime minister, a close friend of Mrs. Bun Rany Hun Sen, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, FA chief Ti Sokun, and their father-in-law and many relatives who have operated in a close network to devastate the forests and make money from the timber trade for their own syndicates and families. General Hing Bun-hieng, commander of the prime minister's bodyguard unit, also has his name on the logging criminals' list.

In years past as well as this year economic experts and governance specialists have shown the figures of the loss in national incomes caused by the people close to the prime minister. They have estimated that each year some $400 to $500 million has been lost to illegal logging alone. Last year and this year, the share from corruption and land-grab activities by the powerful people in the group around the prime minister and the Mafia-like money-laundering tycoons has spread far and wide all over Cambodia. Unfortunately, the prime minister has been left in the dark. He cannot see even if he is looking at it.

Those who are monitoring the prime minister's government stewardship say that crimes, murders, and all kinds of corrupt practice of large and medium scales usually are the works of the prime minister's own blood relatives. Several of his cousins have been accused of involvement in land grab. One of his nephews shot and killed people. Close relatives of the prime minister are implicated in logging and oil smuggling, and so on. In other words, the prime minister has become very notorious on the national and international stages since the outset thanks to the exploits of the members of his extended family.

The Cambodian prime minister claims himself to be strong and smart in all departments. Whenever he gets hold of a microphone, he rambles on and on for hours. Most of the time, his speeches include threats and useless nonsense, especially excessive laudatory mentions of his own children and relatives. The incitement, menace, and temperamental outbursts of the prime minister in his frequent speeches give listeners the impression that he really means business. Over the past decade, however, the prime minister has made nothing but empty promises, meaning that whatever he has said is just part of his misleading oratory skill. The prime minister has proved to be politically incompetent and unwilling. Frankly speaking, he does not have a shred of national conscience in him. Such incompetence and obvious ignorance have driven the prime minister deeper into darkness to the point that he can no longer see or understand the widespread corruption tentacles that are constricting the Cambodian society, plunging it into growing darkness.

Nevertheless, the latest Global Witness report, which identifies the criminals behind the destruction of the national forests as being part of the prime minister's family tree, will help to open the prime minister's eye to reality. On the contrary, if the prime minister is not blind but pretends to be so, he will not escape retribution because in the future the parliamentarians will summon the ministers or even the prime minister to answer in person (not in writing) to their questioning at the National Assembly concerning all cases involving corruption that the current prime minister cannot see or grasp.

Anyway, one sentence uttered by the prime minister who pretends to be ignorant goes like this: "There is corruption in every country." This means that the prime minister is not completely unaware of the festering corruption in his government. In making this remark, the prime minister wanted to cover up and protect the corrupt people and criminals of all sorts and in all places who are members of his group or of his family.

All that the Hun Sen regime can do is: Beg, beg, beg ... for more aid

Cambodia asks foreign donors for more aid

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The Associated Press

"If their mission is to help Cambodia's long-suffering population, rather than just cozying up to its kleptocratic government, donors must start insisting on tangible actions to combat corruption and impunity" - Simon Taylor, Global Witness Director

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The Cambodian government opened a meeting with foreign donors Tuesday to ask for more aid, amid a barrage of criticism that it has reneged on promises to control rampant corruption.

Despite economic growth averaging 11.4 percent for the last three years, Cambodia remains one of the world's poorest countries and heavily reliant on foreign aid. Donors pledged US$601 million (€448 million) to the government last year.

It is not yet clear how much Cambodia will ask for during the two-day meeting that started Tuesday.

Human rights and environmental groups said the government keeps breaking its promises of reform, and that donors must get tougher with the government to ensure it meets its pledges.

"If their mission is to help Cambodia's long-suffering population, rather than just cozying up to its kleptocratic government, donors must start insisting on tangible actions to combat corruption and impunity," Simon Taylor, director of the Britain-based environmental group Global Witness, said in a statement Monday.

Early this month, his group issued a stinging report alleging tycoons, some senior officials and relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen were running illegal logging businesses. The government denied the allegations.

Yash Ghai, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for human rights in Cambodia, in a report this month, also blasted the government's land concessions.

He said many rural Cambodians were losing out on land which was being given to those with government connections, including for logging purposes.

U.S. Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli has praised the government for realizing strong economic growth and "solid progress" in some health and legal areas.

But progress in other important areas, such as land-grabbing, the environment and good governance "is hampered by the systemic corruption we see in Cambodia today," he said Saturday.

Yet, the donors "are being taken for a ride" by the government, Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, said Saturday.

"Hun Sen continues to run circles around the donors, making the same empty promises every year and laughing all the way to the bank," he said.

Cambodia warned not leap into taxation and licensing agreements to attract investors, and then try to strongarm a better deal when oil start to flow

Sunday June 10, 2007
Cambodia's oil bonanza muted by uncertainties

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Two years after discovering oil off its coast, uncertainty clouds Cambodia's nascent petroleum sector, with analysts saying it is impossible to gauge the extent of the country's fuel deposits or their impact on one of the world's poorest economies.

Predictions of vast new wealth are now being reconsidered, with some international institutions already drastically scaling back previous estimates of a billion barrels of oil.

Even Prime Minister Hun Sen has tempered earlier claims that the country would begin tapping oil by 2010, saying last week that Cambodia's petroleum prospects were now "uncertain".

"Oil under the sea is still a dream," he said Wednesday.

Diplomats have reacted with caution to Cambodia's possible petroleum windfall amid rising hopes that annual revenues would dwarf the current budget and pull the country out of poverty.

"Whether Cambodia will ultimately benefit from its future oil revenue is uncertain," said US Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli.

Analysts agree that it is too early to tell how oil could impact Cambodia, where 35 percent of the population lives on less than 50 US cents a day.

"The exact size of the reserves, how much is entirely recoverable, is still unknown," said International Monetary Fund advisor Jeremy Carter.

"One has to hold off from making very large-scale assumptions about what will happen," he said.

Momentum, however, is building after the US energy giant Chevron announced two years ago that it had struck oil in four of five wells dug in the waters off Cambodia's southern coast.

While Chevron confirms the presence of oil and continues drilling, the company has not released any data from Block A, one of six open to exploration in Cambodia's water in the Gulf of Thailand.

But the sheer size of estimated deposits -- the government has tentatively put petroleum reserves in Block A alone at 700 million barrels -- has other internationals rushing into talks for exploration and production rights.

The government has divulged very little about these negotiations.

But companies from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Kuwait, as well as China's state energy giant CNOOC, have all bid for rights in other blocks, said Te Duong Tara, executive director of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA), at a conference in February.

Since Chevron's announcement, the debate has largely focused on Cambodia's ability to manage its oil wealth.

The money could be used to repair infrastructure, or build schools and hospitals, said Sok Hach, president of the Economic Institute of Cambodia, a private think tank.

"I think it could be very, very helpful if it was managed well," he told AFP.

But the potential for a sudden influx of billions of dollars has some observers warning of disaster for corruption-plagued Cambodia.

Sok Hach agreed that there was "the dark side of the story"; Cambodia's weak governance and institutionalised graft that could see oil wealth simply devoured by the powerful.

Hun Sen has repeatedly vowed that oil would not become a "curse", referring to other poor countries like Nigeria whose resource riches have benefited only the elite.

The world's sixth largest oil exporter in 2005, Nigeria remains one of the poorest nations in sub-Sahara Africa and has "come to epitomise what can go wrong with oil wealth," according to the World Bank.

"The challenge for Cambodia will be to channel this new-found wealth through strong institutions, reinforcing the capacity of the state to collect and spend for the benefit of all Cambodians," said World Bank economist Robert Taliercio.

But this is not easy in a country that has limped along under a system of political patronage, kickbacks and buy-offs.

Hun Sen's promises of oil sector transparency are also likely to be blunted by recent accusations from the forestry watchdog Global Witness that his relatives and other politically-connected families were plundering Cambodia's other key natural resource, timber, "with complete immunity."

Amid the uncertainties surrounding Cambodia's fuel sector, the Chevron project is an important indicator of whether foreign companies will be able to work with the government here, analysts say.

"The success of that project will be a hot test for other companies sitting on the sidelines," said Dave Ernsberger, Asia oil director at Singapore-based energy information giant Platts.

"How those partners fare with the national government, taxation, and ability to export and sell the crude oil and natural gas will be a key test for Cambodia," he added.

Ernsberger warned, however, that Cambodia should not leap into taxation and licensing agreements simply to attract investors, only to then try to strongarm a better deal for itself once oil has started flowing.

"There is a trend around the world for developing nations to aggressively renegotiate contracts," he told AFP.

Already, Hun Sen is urging donors to pressure oil companies to ink revenue sharing agreements that more heavily favour Cambodia.

But this tactic could backfire, according to Ernsberger.

"The issue for a country like Cambodia is that ... there is simply not yet the proven potential for gas and oil exports and track record of performance for many companies to tolerate that sort of behavior," Ernsberger said.