Cambodia Threatens More Logging if Loan Cut
2/25/97
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Headline: Cambodia Threatens More Logging if Loan Cut
Source: Reuters
Date: 2/25/97
Copyright 1997 by Reuters
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuter) - Co-Premier Hun Sen warned
that the Cambodian government could revive its controversial
logging program to pay civil servants if the International
Monetary Fund halted fresh loans.
``I don't want to ask aid from anyone anymore. If they want
to cut the loan it is up to them. If they cut the aid, we can
cut and sell trees to raise money to pay our civil servants'
salaries,'' Hun Sen told reporters Tuesday.
Illegal logging has been an explosive issue in Cambodia,
once one of the most heavily forested countries in the world.
The government has banned log exports from Dec. 31 and vowed to
take strong measures to enforce the rule.
Hun Sen said there was no reason for the IMF to withhold the
next $20 million installment in a $120 million three-year loan
program.
``If they don't give, we can find a way to live by
ourselves,'' he said.
An IMF delegation flew into Cambodia Monday to determine the
fate of $40 million in loans, the last two installments of the
loan program.
The international financial institution last year canceled the fourth $20
million installment over perceived problems with accounting procedures and
the national forestry policy.
The premier, speaking at a signing ceremony between his
Cambodian People's Party and a smaller party, said he did not
favor a revival of logging but added that Cambodia had learned
how to survive a Western-imposed economic embargo in the 1980s.
Michael Kuhn, assistant director of the IMF's Central Asia
Department and leader of the current delegation, said in
November that the remaining $40 million would partly depend on
``determined policy and implementation in the (forestry) arena.''
The government has since taken steps to clean up its accounts and halt
logging, including closing borders to log exports starting Dec. 31.
But it suffered a setback when the firm chosen to control logging, Societe
Generale de Surveillance of Switzerland, withdrew last month citing
concerns that it would be expected to act as an enforcement agency or
paramilitary force.