U.S. Clearance of Thailand in Logging Dispute Is Questioned by Some
Experts
2/16/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: U.S. Clearance of Thailand in Logging Dispute Is Questioned by
Some Experts
Source: The Washington Post
Date: 2/16/97
Author: Thomas W. Lippman
c Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
By Thomas W. Lippman
Seeking to preserve good relations with an important Asian ally, the State
Department has notified Congress that Thailand has effectively sealed its
border with Cambodia and shut down a massive clandestine logging traffic
that has denuded Cambodian forests.
The report was surprisingly unequivocal, considering numerous
reports from environmental groups and journalists that illicit
timber exports continue from Cambodia to Thailand, and that
senior officials of both governments profit from them.
One congressional aide said it would be "a miracle" if the
report were accurate.
The State Department based its conclusion on a tour of the
border last month, and critics said it would be easy for the
traffic to resume once the inspection was complete.
By law, the Clinton administration would have been required to
cut off most aid to Thailand, and all aid to the Thai
military, if it found Thailand continued to tolerate or
encourage commerce that aided Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge
rebels. U.S. aid to Thailand is modest -- about $4.6 million
this year -- but a cutoff would have disrupted relations with
an important economic and political partner in Southeast Asia.
So the State Department submitted a report required by the
1997 Foreign Aid appropriations act telling Congress the
Cambodian government banned timber exports as of Dec. 31 and
"the Thai military has made a concerted effort to enforce the
complete ban."
The logging provision was added to the foreign aid law in a
bid to cut off a major source of funds for the Khmer Rouge
who, until last year, controlled the border areas inside
Cambodia and used the logging revenue to finance operations.
The issue of Thailand's complicity with the Khmer Rouge has
long clouded U.S.-Thai relations. The Thai relationship with
the notorious rebel group began in the late 1970s, when an
invading Vietnamese force drove the Khmer Rouge from power in
Phnom Penh and forced them to regroup in remote areas along
the Thai border. The Thais, like some U.S. officials, feared
and opposed the Vietnamese more than they feared the Khmer
Rouge.
But, with the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia and
implementation of a 1993 U.N.-sponsored political settlement,
the logging traffic evolved into an issue of corruption, not
policy. The Cambodian government officials who facilitated it
by issuing phony export certificates were financing their most
ruthless enemy; the Thais who profited from it were dealing
with a rebel group reviled throughout Asia for its brutality.
After major Khmer Rouge units defected and joined the
Cambodian government last year, the cross-border traffic was
by definition no longer supporting the Khmer Rouge, so
opponents shifted their focus to the logging traffic's impact
on Cambodia's environment and its effect on government
revenue.
The International Monetary Fund held up a $20 million loan
installment to Cambodia last year because the logging exports
deprived the government of needed revenue.
"A thorough inspection of the Thai side of the border area by
U.S. embassy Bangkok officers in January 1997 found no
evidence of significant cross-border commercial activity of
any kind . . . including the export of logs," according to the
State Department report.
But critics of the Thai government suggested the border was
closed during the early January inspection because the Thais
knew the State Department had to report to Congress by Feb. 1
and are just waiting until the pressure is off to resume the
traffic.
"It's effectively daylight robbery from Phnom Penh. They might
as well go right to Phnom Penh and take the money right out of
the government vault," said Simon Taylor of the British
environmental group Global Witness, who toured the border in
December.
Taylor noted that the report says Thailand continued last year
to give identity cards to lumberjacks and drivers who crossed
the border to work in the Cambodian forests. That alone, he
said, indicated Thai complicity.
The traffic is difficult to control, according to Global
Witness, because a government ban on logging within Thailand
led to an insatiable demand for logs from Cambodia and Burma
by Thai sawmill companies with good government connections.