Thais Defend Role in Cambodia Logging
1/21/97
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Headline: Thais Defend Role in Cambodia Logging
Source: United Press International
Date: 1/21/97
Copyright 1997 by United Press International
BANGKOK, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- The Thai government is denying all wrong-
doing in the opening of checkpoints for Thai lumber companies carrying
Cambodian timber across the two countries' common border.
Deputy Prime Minister Samak Suntorawet says (Tuesday) Thailand is
being unfairly blamed for the rapid depletion of Cambodia's forests and
that the Phnom Penh government and Japan are more responsible for
deforestation.
Samak says he is ``amused that when the Japanese process the wood and
ship it to Japan nothing happens, but if we import the lumber it is not
okay. Why is that?''
Samak's remarks followed the publication (Monday) of a Cambodian
government document which Thai leaders say refutes charges that Prime
Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh took part in deals to illegally extract
timber from Cambodia.
Last week an official of the London-based human rights and environment
group Global Witness was quoted as saying Chavalit and his predecessor,
Banharn Silpa-arch, conspired to open border checkpoints for the removal
of Cambodian logs.
Environmentalists say the rapid deforestation of Cambodia by timber
companies from Thailand, Malaysia and elsewhere will leave the country a
virtual desert early in the next century.
They say tough anti-logging laws by the Thai and Cambodian governments are
being ignored by timber companies and military officials who control the
border.