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The Nation: Chuan to set up panel t
- Subject: The Nation: Chuan to set up panel t
- From: suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 17:56:00
Politics
Chuan to set up panel to
probe illegal logging
PRIME Minister Chuan Leekpai plans to
set up a committee to investigate illegal
logging in the Salween National Park after
six forestry officials in charge of the park
were transferred Tuesday.
Chuan said he had flown over the park and
seen traces of illegal logging. The trees are
suspected to have been smuggled across
the border and reimported with fake
certificates of origin from Burma.
''I will set up a committee to probe the
illegal logging in Salween,'' Chuan said.
The six officials were based in Mae Hong
Son's Mae Sariang and Pai districts, and
Tak's Mae Ramat and Muang districts. All
of them were moved to inactive posts at the
Forestry Department in Bangkok.
They were Direk Yusabay, Prayoon Polnak,
and Uthai Chaisiri in Mae Sariang, Prawut
Tanthanapala in Pai, Montree Dejboribun in
Tak's Muang district and Sittichai Somjit in
Mae Ramat district.
The transfer was to facilitate the
investigations, the transfer order said.
The seven officials were responsible for
issuing documents to Thai logging
companies which had won logging
concessions in Burma to bring in the logs
and transport them in Thailand.
The illegal logging in Salween park came
under the spotlight after Deputy Forestry
Dir-Gen Prawat Thanadkha tried but failed
to donate Bt5 million in cash to the
Thais-Help-Thais fund last week. Chuan
declined to accept the money after being
warned that it might have come from
loggers illegally felling trees in Salween.
Prawat is now being investigated by both a
committee of the Agriculture Ministry and a
police team.
Chuan said the committee he would set up
would find out which agencies or officials
had been negligent in allowing illegal
logging.
The prime minister said he had received
reports from the National Security Council
that the illegal logging had been carried out
since the middle of 1996 when Thai logging
firms were first allowed to import logs from
Burma.
''We will find out whose fault and
responsibility it was to allow the illegal
activities to continue. At the same time we
will have to prevent further illegal logging in
the area,'' Chuan said.
The prime minister said officials in charge
of suppressing illegal logging could not
claim intimidation.
''Intimidation is no excuse. One must
perform one's duty,'' Chuan said.
The prime minister said he would himself
find out from the Forestry Department why it
had allowed the logging in Salween park to
''go on this long'' and would ask the
Agriculture Ministry why Prawat had been
appointed chairman of the ministry's illegal
logging suppression and prevention
committee.
Mae Hong Son Gov Pakdi Chompuming
has attacked police deputy director-general
Pol Gen Salang Bunnag of failing in his
responsibility to suppress illegal logging.
Salang Tuesday argued that he was only to
back up forestry officials when called on.
Salang suggested that Thailand stop
importing logs from Burma to cut loggers'
opportunities to disguise illegally-felled logs
as imported ones.
But Chuan ruled out an import ban, saying
the country stood to gain from the import of
logs.
Government Spokesman Akhapol
Sorasuchart quoted Chuan as telling the
Cabinet that ''no stone will be left unturned''
in the investigation of illegal logging in
Salween park.
A military source from a task force
patrolling Salween River said about 3,000
to 4,000 trees were believed to have been
felled in the park and hidden along the
border waiting to be smuggled into Burma
and reimported.
The source said some Thai logging
companies had hired Karen troops to fell
the trees.
Meanwhile Pol Col Wisanu Muangpaensri,
a Crime Suppression Division officer who
is investigating the source of Bt5 million,
said Prawat and his wife had declined to
meet police investigators.
''Police may have to issue a subpoena,''
Wisanu said.
Police said Tuesday that a preliminary
investigation suggested that the money had
been withdrawn from a bank in Tak.
Meanwhile in Mae Hong Son the wife of a
police sergeant who gave a list of
suspected illegal loggers in Salween park
to the prime minister said four strangers
had tried to contact her daughter at Payup
University in Chiang Mai by claiming to be
friends of her husband.
The Nation