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The Nation: Chuan to set up panel t



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