Hor Nam Bora calls for "regime change" at Global Witness (again)

Hor Nam Bora, CPP ambassador to London

2008 Media Releases
4 February
Royal Embassy of Cambodia, London, UK

New Policy and Leadership: Key Challenges to Global Witness in 2008

Once again, Global Witness Director Simon Taylor is trying to impress by playing celebrities in Global Witness’s press release on 22 January 2008 entitled "US move to ban top Cambodian officials ... to get tough on corruption".

The Embassy was disappointed by the Global Witness Director’s deliberated intention to discredit and to plot against the Government of Cambodia and its leaders at the single occasion found. This can probably explained in the same way dogs are happier to lick bones found in the domestic waste. We find it hard to believe that, the “UNEDUCATED” still exist in such number and continue to lead Global Witness.

The present code of conduct regulating Global Witness is insufficient: IT IS TIME TO ESTABLISH AN INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR A REVISED GUIDELINES OF GLOBAL WITNESS BY ITS FUNDERS-TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS-DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS AND GOVERNMENTS OF CANADA, IRELAND, NETHERLANDS, SWEDEN AND UK.

The Royal Government has considered “Environmental Protection is a Prerequisite Condition” for ensuring sustainable socio-economic development by enhancing equity and justice in utilizing national resources and environmental services in a way that benefits all people. In this sense, the Royal Government has introduced a rigorous measure against violators to crack down anarchic activities such as deforestation, banning large-scale forest exploitation.

The Royal Government of Cambodia has introduced and implemented an insightful forestry reform with high determination and, national and international support, we have successfully strengthened national order and the ability to control, maintain, protect, plant and to proudly develop the national forestry sector. Until now, regarding some works, Cambodia is leading and acting as a role model in the region such as the implementation of international forestry regime, and forestry technical code.

The relations between Cambodia and other countries in the world have seen remarkable progress:

- recently by the visit of Director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Robert S. Mueller and his visit is as another indication of the expanding cooperation between our two countries' law enforcement agencies,

- a US delegation, led by Stephen D. Mull, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs of the US State Department in which the US highly praised Cambodia which just got of war not long ago, but that it has built itself up following the path of democracy in order to bring in progress in all fields,

- and a Delegation of the European Parliament for relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) led by Mr. Hartmut NASSAUER, Member of the European Parliament from Germany, aiming to develop EU cooperation program in Cambodia; and the commercial relations between the EU and Cambodia in general.

Cambodia attributed the progress and the development to the maintenance of the peace, the political stability, the social security, the economic growth, the cooperation with international communities, and the international assistance, including the United State, European Union, Japan, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

"Since Cambodia is back on the path of strong and sustained economic growth, testified by considerable and encouraging achievements during the last few years, I believe that this is the best time for the business community and all investors to assess the potential and opportunity as well as the future vision of Cambodia. I would like to invite businessmen and investors to join me by undertaking concrete investment projects to build a bright future for Cambodia. On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to guarantee every foreign investor a favorable and conducive environment for investment, particularly peace, security, safety, political stability, macroeconomic stability as well as legal and institutional framework endowed with efficiency, transparency, accountability and predictability". Samdech Techo Hun Sen Prime Minister of Cambodia.

Retalation from the family of "the Nation thieves" against alleged Global Witness "plot"

Government Assails Global Witness ‘Plot’

By Brian Calvert, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
06 February 2008

The Cambodian government accused resources monitor Global Witness of plotting to discredit the government Monday, following reports the US is considering a ban on corrupt officials.

In a release issued Monday, the Cambodian Embassy in London said the UK-based organization deliberately sought “to discredit and plot against the government.”

The statement follows a potential US visa ban on corrupt officials in foreign countries who benefit from the exploitation of natural resources.

US Congress has recommended the State Department specifically consider a 2007 Global Witness report linking more than a dozen top officials and businessmen to Prime Minister Hun Sen and his family.

The Cambodian Embassy Monday called for international regulations and guidelines for Global Witness, calling its leadership “uneducated.”

Cambodia has seen “remarkable progress,” the embassy said, citing a number of high-level visits from US and European officials.

Global Witness Director Simon Taylor told VOA Khmer Wednesday the embassy statement “indicates how far Cambodia needs to come to understand what this issue is about.”

“Annually they promise, annually they fail to deliver, and annually the donors fail to respond to the problem adequately,” he said.

In the past decade, corrupt Cambodian elites “have presided over the destruction of the forestry estate,” Taylor said.

Meanwhile, Cambodians “absolutely desperate to get it right” are “thwarted by the people around them.”

With offshore oil exploration on the horizon, “crunch time is coming” to address corruption, he said.

US Could Ban ‘Kleptocrats’ From Entry

By Brian Calvert, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 January 2008

Click to listen to Heng Reaksmey reports in Khmer

Top Cambodian officials implicated in illegal logging could face a ban from US entry, according to a new US law.

Under a recently inacted 2008 spending law, the State Department must compile a list of foreign government officials and their immediate family members suspected of involvement in corruption in natural resources depletion.

Any name the on the “anti-kleptocracy” list will not be granted entry into the US, with exceptions for UN meetings or law enforcement requirements, according to the law.

“If it now it becomes hard to, you know, go and stay in your nice house in Manhattan or wherever you happen to have it, then too bad,” said Simon Taylor, director of the resource monitor Global Witness.

A 2007 Global Witness report, “Cambodia’s Family Trees,” names a number of high-level officials and family members as part of countrywide illegal logging rackets.

Congress has urged the State Department to consider the report when making its list of Cambodian officials.

A State Department spokesman said Wednesday the US “takes all allegations of corruption seriously.”

The US “shares many of the concerns” raised by the Global Witness report and is “reviewing all relevant information” to compile its list, the spokesman said.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Congress was seeking to ban Cambodian officials as a way to attract votes ahead of a presidential election and said the move to ban corrupt officials was not a “presidential decree.”

In fact, Congressional elections are not held this year, and the US does not run on a decree system.

The potential ban was welcomed by some conservationists in Cambodia.

“It is right for the United States to deny entry visas for those violating international law, because logging is an important issue,” said Hieng Rith, director of the Cambodia National Research Organization. “When all the trees are logged, there will be no rain. By definition it’s just like destruction against humanity, as humans will die if there is no rain.”

The Global Witness report, issued in June 2007, angered Cambodian officials and was immediately banned across the country.

It said Cambodia’s forests were being stripped clean by a network of Cambodian elite that generated its wealth from the seizure of public assets, including wide swaths of forests.

Officially ejected from the country in 2006, Global Witness spent years investigating the networks of illegal logging.

The report implicates more than a dozen officials, including Forestry Minister Chan Sarun, Forestry Administration Director Ty Sokhun and military officers of the elite military Brigade 70, which Global Witness called a “private army” of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The officials have denied wrongdoing in the past, and were unavailable for further comment Wednesday.

All of them are part of a circle of kleptocrats and cronies surrounding Hun Sen, Taylor said.

“Either he’s looking the other way, because they’re too close, which doesn’t say much for his authority, or he’s part of the problem,” Taylor said.

Global Witness was “disappointed” that language in the bill was removed that would have banned US companies from doing business with listed kleptocrats, but Taylor said the group would continue to push for stronger language in the future.

“Here we are in Cambodia ten years down, we’ve had a decade worth of billions of dollars of delivery, and very little delivery, I think, beyond personal wealth expansion in Phnom Penh and a few other centers," he said. "And meanwhile, the average lot of the average Cambodian hasn’t gone up that much, and the assets of the state have been stolen and parked offshore.”

For more information, see the Global Witness report, and the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

US could ban travel for Cambodians tied to illegal logging

Cambodia intricate family trees of the thieves of the Nation (Global Witness)
Click to zoom in

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The US has passed a law that could see travel bans for Cambodian officials accused of looting the country's natural resources, a move hailed Wednesday by conservationists as a strike against illegal logging.

The law, enacted in December, endorses calls by the US Congress to deny visas to Cambodian officials identified in a 2007 report by the environmental watchdog Global Witness as being guilty of plundering Cambodia's forests.

London-based Global Witness's caustic study, titled "Cambodia's Family Trees," accused a "kleptocratic" elite of systematically clearing Cambodia's woodlands.

It named several figures close to Prime Minister Hun Sen, including Forest Administration Director General Ty Sokhun and Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, as being directly involved.

In response, an outraged government last year banned the Global Witness report from Cambodia and continues to dismiss its allegations.

A Cambodian government spokesman could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the US legislation.

But the law "sends a clear message that the exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources by a small group of powerful individuals at the expense of the country's poor is unacceptable," Global Witness director Simon Taylor said in a statement received Wednesday.

The legislation, which authorises spending by Washington, instructs the US State Department to identify foreign officials, and their relatives, who are believed to have "been involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries."

It also endorses a congressional subcommittee recommendation to "prohibit corrupt Cambodian officials identified in the June 2007 Global Witness report ... from entering the United States."

But it is unclear if the law will result in visa refusals for individual Cambodians.

US embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle told AFP that "there is no ban ... no specific names have been given to the embassy."

U.S. move to ban top Cambodian officials exposes failure of Europe, Australia and Japan to get tough on corruption

Global Witness
London, 22 January 2008 for immediate release

Officials involved in natural resource related corruption from other countries may also be banned

Anti-corruption NGO Global Witness today welcomed the news that the United States government has endorsed travel sanctions on top Cambodian officials, and called on other countries to follow suit. Despite giving large amounts of development aid to Cambodia, other countries in Europe, such as the UK, France and Germany, as well as Japan and Australia, have failed to take tough action in response to reports of high-level institutional corruption in Cambodia.

This unprecedented move by the U.S. became official with the passing into law of the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which determines funding for U.S. overseas assistance. The Act requires the U.S. Secretary of State to keep a running list of foreign government officials and their family members who have been involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries. Individuals on this list will be ineligible for admission to the United States. It also specifically urges the Bush administration to prohibit corrupt officials identified in the Global Witness report ‘Cambodia’s Family Trees’ from entering the United States and calls on other western and Asian countries to impose similar restrictions.

When implemented, the proposed U.S. ban will affect senior Cambodian ministers, top-ranking generals and others. It is a direct response to Global Witness’ exposure of institutional corruption and asset-stripping at the highest echelons of Cambodia’s government. ‘Cambodia’s Family Trees’, published in June 2007, details how a network of timber barons with familial or business links to Prime Minister Hun Sen, his wife, and other senior officials, are looting the country’s forests with impunity. Members of this group are heavily implicated in cases of kidnapping and attempted murder. The report also presents evidence of corruption by senior officials and the smuggling activities of elite military units controlled by the prime minister.
“To ban top Cambodian officials from the United States not only means that those individuals are no longer free to visit relatives or go shopping in the streets of New York or Los Angeles: it is also a damning indictment of the way state power in Cambodia is exercised,” said Global Witness Director Simon Taylor. “It sends a clear message that the exploitation of Cambodia’s natural resources by a small group of powerful individuals at the expense of the country’s poor is unacceptable and fundamentally undermines development and good governance.”

The U.S. legislature’s response contrasts sharply with that of other donors. Despite the Cambodian government consistently reneging on commitments to strengthen governance and uphold human rights, Cambodia’s donors continue to pledge more money without seeing tangible actions to combat corruption and impunity. In 2007 – just weeks after the launch of ‘Cambodia’s Family Trees’ – Cambodia’s donors pledged a record US$689 million in development aid: a rise of 15% on the previous year.

“Given the insipid response from Cambodia’s donor community, it is a huge relief to see the U.S. legislature recognise the problem and take a stronger line,” said Taylor. “It is now up to others who profess an interest in Cambodia’s development to adopt similar measures. Only with tough action such as this will we begin to reverse this process of state looting and hold those responsible accountable.”

For further information please call +44 207 561 6385 or +44 7872 620855
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Notes

(1) 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 2007 Commitment to Development Ideas in Action Award, sponsored jointly by Washington DC based Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy magazine.

(2) The report ‘Cambodia's Family Trees' can be downloaded from
http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/546/en/cambodias_family_trees.

(3) The Consolidated Appropriations Act 2008 was signed into law on December 26 2007 by United States President George W. Bush. It can be downloaded from
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:h2764enr.txt.pdf

(4) The provisions relating to Cambodia in the Consolidated Appropriations Act can be found in the accompanying Division J report , which provides additional information on the implementation of the Act. The Division J report endorses the language on Cambodia found within the 2008 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill. This contained the following text: “The Committee urges the administration to exercise Presidential Proclamation 7750 [the anti-Kleptocracy Initiative travel ban] to prohibit corrupt Cambodian officials identified in the June 2007 Global Witness report entitled “Cambodia’s Family Trees: Illegal Logging and the Stripping of Public Assets by Cambodia’s Elite” from entering the United States. The Committee encourages other developed countries, particularly in Europe and Asia, to implement similar restrictions.”