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the nation: Chavalit and the Salwee



Editorial & Opinion 

      Chavalit and the Salween
      saga

      Logging of the forests lining the frontier
      river has ebbed and surged in tandem with
      the political fortunes of the former army
      chief. Chang Noi writes. 

      The Salween logging affair is much more
      than just another chain-saw massacre. Its
      roots lie in Thai-Burmese relations, and the
      rhythms of Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh's
      political career. 

      In 1988 Gen Chavalit, army
      commander-in-chief, travelled to Rangoon
      at the head of a large, top-level military
      delegation. This visit resulted in a major
      change in Thai-Burmese relations. Thailand
      would quietly disassociate itself from the
      international antagonism to the Burmese
      military dictatorship, and stop supporting
      the rebel groups along the border. The
      price for this support was timber and fishing
      rights. 

      Why this change, and why was this part of
      foreign policy being handled by the army?
      On the Burmese side, the junta was gearing
      up to move against its opponents -- the
      democracy movement and the rebel
      minorities -- and it first needed support
      from Thailand and China. On the Thai side,
      the army was under intense pressure. Its
      bloated role in all aspects of government
      was being whittled back by increasingly
      confident elected politicians and pressure
      groups. The businesses (arms buying and
      construction), which had traditionally
      financed the generals' taste for Mercedes
      and other trinkets, were being closed down
      by public exposure. Burma offered a new
      frontier -- both for business opportunities
      and political assertion. 

      From these negotiations, 20 concessions
      were given to Thai companies for logging
      inside Burma. Virtually all the companies
      were owned by military officers and
      associates. Some of the executives figured
      among the supporters of the New
      Aspiration Party which Gen Chavalit
      founded a year later. Within months, the
      Thai government had banned all logging
      inside Thailand and these Burmese
      concessions had become hugely valuable. 

      The Thai Army began clearing up the
      border by shovelling some of the refugee
      students back into Burma. It stopped when
      the international press reported that many
      of these returnees had gone missing,
      presumably executed. A Burmese army unit
      was allowed to cross into Thailand and
      attack a Karen rebel refugee camp. A Thai
      border town was wasted in the attack.
      General Chavalit stamped his foot in
      outrage at this invasion and promised to
      extract reparations. But nothing happened. 

      As recent reports attest, these were the
      golden years in Tak and Mae Hong Son.
      Fortunes were made fast and almost
      legally. The logging inside Burma faced
      almost no restriction, and the Thai
      companies chopped fast and furiously.
      Burma watcher Martin Smith saw one forest
      reserve where 100,000 trees had been cut
      in one year. The border also bred other
      lucrative trades -- bringing out girls and
      heroin, and trading in arms for the rebel
      groups. 

      But the diplomatic basis of this golden era
      was shaky. Between 1992 and 1994, it fell
      apart. International environmental groups
      and some Burmese voices protested
      against the scorched-earth clear-cutting by
      the Thai loggers. On the Thai side, the
      military's prestige and political weight took
      another lurch downwards after the May
      1992 incident. The Democrat-led
      government recaptured control over
      Thai-Burmese relations and took a slightly
      more conditional attitude towards support
      for the junta. The Burmese were no longer
      sure they had a deal. In 1992-93, the
      Burmese government revoked the logging
      concessions and proposed to close the
      border posts. Although the army might be in
      retreat, Gen Chavalit was still in the frame
      as a minister in the Democrat-led coalition.
      In 1993, he managed to negotiate with
      Rangoon to keep the border posts open so
      timber could still flow out. But in December
      1994 Chavalit quit the coalition. The golden
      age passed in history. 

      But the wheel of history spins around. In
      1995, Chavalit returned as defence
      minister in Banharn's coalition.
      Thai-Burmese relations again shot ahead.
      Construction began on the Yadana pipeline
      and a road link through Kanchanaburi. The
      army brokered deals for the Ital-Thai
      Development Co to enter Burma. A
      delegation of executives from major Thai
      companies visited Rangoon to prospect for
      business opportunities. Burma began to
      sidle up to Asean. 

      With the assurance of Thai support, the
      Burmese army upped the pressure on the
      rebel groups along the border with a
      mixture of armed attacks and conciliatory
      treaties. A year ago, in a repeat of 1989,
      the Thai Army stood aside while a Burmese
      unit attacked three rebel refugee camps
      inside Thailand. Again, the Thai Army
      began pushing people back across the
      border until human rights groups protested. 

      And again, Banharn and Chavalit reopened
      the border passes for timber traffic. But it
      seems the timber business developed very
      differently from expectations. The
      military-backed timber firms swung back
      into operation. But they were outflanked by
      a group of people who had been mere
      bit-players in the earlier phase. 

      This new group changed the economics of
      border logging. Getting timber out of Burma
      had become more expensive. The
      remaining stands were deeper in, and the
      logistics more complex and risky. But trees
      have no passports, no nationality. Cutting
      down Thai trees and passing them off as
      Burmese promised much larger profits. 

      They also changed the economics by
      exploiting the human fall-out of border
      politics. They hired the rebel refugee Karen
      inside Thailand as cheap labour and
      devil-may-care gunmen to intimidate rivals.
      And they worked through pro-Rangoon
      Karen to launder Thai logs into Burmese. 

      Som Chankrajang's career is typical of the
      jao phor (local godfathers) of this last
      generation. He started out with little
      education, no money, and a burning desire
      to be very rich. He worked in a gambling
      den where he learnt (as he endearingly told
      an interviewer last week) ''the only way to
      win is to cheat''. He made his first pile by
      hard graft in the trucking business. Then he
      made his fortune in the golden age by
      acting as agent for the logging
      concessionaires. He negotiated with the
      Karen rebel groups to get the timber out to
      the border. 

      His key contact was Bo Mya, the grand old
      man of the Karen resistance. For almost 40
      years, Bo Mya had been one of the most
      commercially-minded rebel leaders. He
      had been dealing with Thai loggers and
      miners since the 1970s. By 1990, the
      profits had enabled him to create possibly
      the most settled and organised of the
      mini-states on the border. When Rangoon
      upped the pressure on the rebels in 1994,
      Bo Mya chose conciliation. He broke with
      the mainline resistance, made a pact with
      Slorc, and donated his troops to help the
      Slorc mopping-up operations. He was now
      in a position to maintain his cash flow by
      giving Burmese nationality to Thai logs. 

      The final link in the chain was the sawmill,
      especially that of Vinai Panichyanuban. The
      logs arrived by several routes: routed
      through Burma to get Bo Mya's chop;
      seized by the Forest Industry Organisation
      and then sold off; magicked through the
      checkpoints with no documentation; and
      possibly also chopped as Burmese without
      ever leaving Thai soil. 

      To disguise the operation, this group
      appears to have used a corruption strategy
      like carpet-bombing -- dropping tonnes of
      cash over a wide area to flatten any
      potential source of opposition, and to leave
      no cover for anyone who wants to risk a
      protest. If the list taken from Som's relative
      is what it appears to be, the cash was paid
      in regular amounts to officials from police,
      army, local administration, customs,
      immigration, forestry and national parks --
      ranging from some very top men to the little
      people who hold open the gates. 

      But the monopoly attempted by Som, Bo
      Mya and Vinai was bound to be vulnerable.
      The old logging companies were furious at
      being excluded and under-cut on price.
      Other rebel groups along the border
      hijacked logs in transit. After Chavalit fell
      from power, the business was quickly
      undermined. The Forestry Department
      obstructed the flow of logs through from
      forest to sawmill. Those managing the
      business believed they could use money to
      free up the resulting log jam. Somebody
      panicked. 

      Now the border business is like an ant's
      nest that has been poked with a stick. The
      army tries to blame the Karen. Bo Mya's
      men attack the rebel camps. Police,
      customs and local officials point fingers at
      one another. The Forestry Department,
      which must be used to such scandals by
      now, adopts the turtle defence strategy of
      withdrawing into its shell and playing dead. 

      But there are clearly two very different
      agendas at work. Some may want to clean
      up the whole business. But some may
      simply want to dislodge the Som-Bo-Vinai
      pirate monopoly, and allow more powerfully
      backed interests to take over again. 

      Most chilling of all has been Gen Chavalit.
      Last week he exploded with one of those
      impulsive, unguarded, revealing outbursts
      which have been the hallmark of his political
      career. Put up or shut up, he challenged;
      charge me or stop talking about it. Charges
      may be difficult. But it seems clear that the
      appalling destruction of forests on both
      banks of the Salween is closely linked to
      the rhythms of Gen Chavalit's political
      career.