[Vietnamization] Cambodia’s illegal logging crackdown: What’s in it for Hun Sen?

Background:

Cambodia’s illegal logging crackdown: What’s in it for Hun Sen?

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Pic: AP

Asian Correspondent | 8 March 2016

ILLEGAL logging has been a major issue in Kingdom of Cambodia for several decades, taking a heavy toll on the country’s natural resources. Some of Cambodia’s most pristine forest areas have been completely cut down, endangering local communities, who depend on forests for their survival, as well as the ecosystem and natural habitat of many species.Recently Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen promised to tackle the problem, but the form he suggested shocked many. The PM, who has led Cambodia for more than 30 years, plans to deter illegal loggers with the threat of firing rockets from helicopters at smugglers.

So far two helicopters have been assigned to patrol illegal logging areas. However, Hun Sen hasn’t suggested how exactly illegal logging sites will be distinguished from the legal concessions. In January, PM established a special committee led by army Gen. Sao Sokha to crack down on the smuggling of timber to neighboring Vietnam.

This rather half-baked solution and a direct command from the very top to extra-judicially kill illegal loggers however redirects attention away from the real problem of deforestation in Cambodia. Hun Sen has made promises to tackle illegal logging many times in the past. It’s become somewhat regular for him to make public statements about cracking down on illegal deforestation, but the government has rarely done anything effective in terms of enforcement. Rule of law and rule of practice can be two very different things in Cambodia.

The issue of deforestation concerns legal and illegal logging. In a country, where land concessions are a a major issue, land-grabs and corruption are rampant. Legal and illegal felling of trees are usually intertwined and much timber has been lost in legal concessions.

Over the course of 30 years of Hun Sen’s rule, the government has handed out – sold or leased for up to 99 years – large chunks of land in the provinces and on the borders of national parks and protected areas. Today, (Economic Land Concessions) ELCs total 10 percent of Cambodia’s surface area.

Although the government has put a moratorium on ELCs to private companies in the name of “agricultural development”, these areas continue to be at the very heart of deforestation, claims international watchdog Global Witness. ELCs are granted only in places where logging is legal in Cambodia, but environmentalists claim that loggers are cutting trees illegally outside of their concessions. Then they bring timber back to the legal concession area and sell it off to private companies.

The land concessions have mostly been granted to powerful tycoons and big companies. One can only speculate under what circumstances had the deals been closed and who really benefited from them. At least a few of the grantees are close allies of Hun Sen or have some links to the powerful Hun Sen family.

Logging under legal concessions

Take the case of Cambodian tycoon Try Pheap, who is the single biggest timber trader in the Kingdom through various companies. In its report, the Cambodia Human Rights Task Force claimed that Try Pheap has been granted state land concessions nearly seven times above the legal limit. This was supposed to happen through his close ties with PM Hun Sen’s family and the ruling CPP. The report alleges that the tycoon paid US$1 million to Hun Sen’s family and the CPP prior to the disputed elections two years ago in exchange for ELCs.

According to the detailed 50-page report, Try Pheap had amassed almost 70,000 hectares of land, seven times the legal 10,000, which an individual is allowed. The tycoon used as many as 15 companies under his or his wife’s Mao Mom name to do this. Article 59 of Cambodia’s Land Law states that an individual cannot be granted more than 10,000 hectares of land, even if they are spread through multiple ELCs.

A truck carries logs on a rural road north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Pic: AP.

Try Pheap hasn’t only violated the Kingdom’s laws with shady deals, but also brought devastating impacts on local communities and the environment. Roughly 1,500 families have been evicted from their homes since 2010 as a consequence of Try Pheap acquisitions.

“The companies have mainly cut down the forests, the land is left undeveloped,” CHRTF’s director Ouch Leng told Radio Free Asia upon the release of the report. Moreover, Try Pheap’s activities have encroached on protected forests, wildlife sanctuaries and as many as 20 national parks.

Cambodia’s Human Rights Task Force had received insider information from Try Pheap’s family, confirming that the $1 million pre-election gift to PM Hun Sen and CPP was in exchange for the special treatment in ELCs.

CHRTF has tracked Try Pheap’s companies and their activities all the way to Vietnam, where the tycoon exports the logged timber to third countries. His company Try Pheap Import Export has exclusive rights to collect and buy luxury timer, mainly endangered and internationally protected rosewood fast disappearing from Southeast Asia’s forests, through concessions in 15 provinces. His other companies clear timber in other areas in nine more provinces.

“The company pays only minimal attention to developing agriculture, such as through planting of rubber and pepper – which is required under the concessions. It only cuts down trees. There is no development,” claims the CHRTF.

The director of the project Ouch Leng also spoke to Phnom Penh Post about the issue, saying that Try Pheap’s company “has fed and sponsored armed forces and civil servants in concession areas, building offices, but it does not improve people’s lives.”

Try Pheap’s close ties with Hun Sen have granted him access for logging as well as mining activities in the provinces. Try Pheap Import Export has 27 offices in 12 provinces. The CHRTF report claims, that the tycoon has close connections with officials in ministries of interior and agriculture, but also forestry officials and military – all controlled by CPP and Hun Sen’s family.

Responding to these allegations, the government said it would investigate the matter, but the case never proceeded. Try Pheap Import Export argued that it “buys wood seized by authorities. The money goes back to the state. We don’t export the timber, but make furniture in Phnom Penh.” According to the company, villagers had been given adequate compensation for their land, if evicted.

Among the Cambodian PM’s statements against the illegal logging and deforestation problem is a notable one, where he said that allowing expansive tracts of forests to be cut down was “the biggest mistake” of the last decade. He also added, that if the licences of companies found to be logging illegally were not revoked, “I will cut my own head off”. This has obviously never happened and it truly speaks for how seriously Hun Sen’s statements on deforestation in Cambodia should be taken.

The real crackdown

Looking at what has actually been done in terms of destructive legal or illegal logging of timber in Cambodia, the main action has been repeatedly taken by mostly unidentified hit-men targeting civil society and environmental activists.

Take the case of environmental activist Chut Wutty, who was murdered in April 2012 while researching alleged illegal logging and land seizure in Koh Kong province. Wutty was the director of Natural Resource Protection Group and regularly went on patrols and research trips to bring more information to light regarding land-grabs and loss of forests due to logging.

Chut Wutty, left, stands next to a log in a jungle in Kampong Thom province, north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Pic: AP.

He was shot and killed by, as the authorities initially claimed, a military officer, who then killed himself. That would have been an easy case. However, Wutty’s family pushed for a deeper investigation and a court case. Later in November 2012 the case was dropped altogether. Many reacted in anger and Chut Wutty’s case had become a crystal clear example of what happens to Cambodians who fight power and large economic land concessions.

Global Witness, an international watchdog, has expressed doubts about the investigation, which produced many questionable versions of what had really happened to Wutty. Most likely he was killed by the armed guards of powerful people behind the logging he  investigated.

“What’s happening in Cambodia is extremely alarming. A tiny elite is riding roughshod over the people and the legal system to get its hands on the country’s natural resource wealth,” said Patrick Alley, director of Global Witness. “This decision again shows the Cambodian people really have nowhere to turn, because it appears the courts are in the pocket of a violent, repressive regime who will stop at nothing to turn their land into profit.”

Repression of civil society and violence to silence critics or those who stand in the way of economic development projects is a daily reality in Cambodia, whether one is an activist or a journalist. After Wutty, reporter Hang Serei Oudon was killed, apparently because of his controversial work and investigative stories on illegal logging. He was found brutally murdered in the trunk of his car.

“Following Chut Wutty’s death, the crisis he was fighting in Cambodia’s farms and forests has got rapidly worse,” the environmental watchdog Global Witness said in a statement released one year after the activist was killed.

Since 2008, 2 million hectares of Cambodia’s land have been transferred to industrial agricultural companies. Most of the concessions were granted after land was grabbed from small farmers. The communities, who lose their land due to logging of timber, are rarely compensated or even consulted prior to the closing of the deals.

According to a study published in the journal Science, more than 7 percent of Cambodia’s forest cover has been destroyed in the past 12 years – a rate that rivals Malaysia and Indonesia for the fastest in Asia, and ranks fifth in the world.