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Scam prompts urgent steps to counte



Scam prompts urgent steps to counter threat to forests

Troops to help protect wildlife sanctuaries

Bangkok Post
Feb. 17, 1998

Post reporters


The five-million-baht logging bribery scandal has prompted urgent measures
to counter a serious threat to the forests.

The army agreed yesterday to help the Forestry Department by sending troops
to stamp out logging in the Salween wildlife sanctuary and Salween national
park in Mae Hong Son.

Gen Chettha Thanajaro, the army chief, said he would ask Gen Maung Aye, his
Burmese counterpart, in Rangoon next month, to tell Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army rebels not to help Thai loggers falsify the origin of timber.

Logs have been hauled across the Salween river, given Burmese seals and
returned via passes in Tak.

Gen Charn Boonprasert, the army chief-of-staff, said after talks with
forestry officials that the first, second and fourth regional commands were
authorised by law to arrest illegal operators in their areas of operation.

Emphasis would be placed on intelligence to keep track of logging gangs,
said Gen Charn. Once illegal operations appear imminent, patrols would be
despatched.

Pongpol Adireksarn, the Agriculture Minister, said a total ban on log
movements was being considered. Auctions of seized logs by the Forest
Industry Organisation had indirectly encouraged destruction, he said.

Alarm bells were sounded after the prime minister turned down a donation of
five million baht believed to have been paid as bribe to Mr Prawat to
ignore illegal operations in the Salween forests.

Phakdi Chomphooming, the Mae Hong Son governor, said border passes would be
closed until matters are cleared up. Denying he had failed to stem logging
since he became governor in 1996, Mr Phakdi said: "I will take
responsibility but I am not the blame. I will take punishment if they deem
I deserve it but I am not guilty."

Mae Hong Son administrators have ordered the transfer of four forestry
officials from the Mae Sariang and Pai district offices to Bangkok pending
investigations into allegations they assisted loggers.

Two forestry officials from Tak have also been transferred to Bangkok for
alleged involvement in the payment to Mr Prawat.

In Mae Hong Son, Sa-nga Uatrakul, the provincial forestry chief, said the
best way to protect the Salween forests was to present them to Their
Majesties the King and Queen. No logging operators would dare fell trees,
he said.

Boonchu Trithong, a deputy Chart Thai leader, said the source of the
payment to Mr Prawat had been involved with illegal logging in the Salween
area since his concessions in Burma expired in 1992.

Mr Boonchu said the operator has close connections with Burmese authorities
and minorities and had bought promotion for several forestry officials.

The Lampang MP, who said he had been out of the logging business for six
years, said he was ready to give police information about another
influential logging operator from Chiang Mai.

A source in Mae Hong Son said several thousand logs were about to be
smuggled in from Shan State by the two operators mentioned by Mr Boonchu,
former chief executive of Sirin Technology Co, an importer of logs from
Burma in 1989.

Mr Boonchu called for tougher action in fighting corruption, saying senior
civil servants ranging from division directors to permanent secretaries
should be forced to declare their assets and liabilities.

Two House panels are investigating the logging bribery scandal and illegal
logging in the Salween forests.

Kaew Buasuwan, chairman of the Local Administration Committee, said Mr
Sathit, Mr Prawat and other senior officials would be called to testify on
Thursday.