THE NATION: Karens blamed for

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Politics 

      Karens blamed for
      shrinking Salween forests

      A COMMITTEE looking into the illegal
      logging in Salween forests Tuesday
      blamed Karen refugees for massive cutting
      of trees in the area. 

      The fact-finding panel, chaired by Interior
      Permanent Secretary Chanasak
      Yuwaboon, suggested that Karen refugees
      should be removed from the forests and
      that the opening of temporary border
      checkpoints should be halted. 

      The committee, assigned by the prime
      minister to investigate illegal logging in
      Salween National Park and Salween
      Wildlife Sanctuary, Tuesday held a meeting
      to discuss initial findings. 

      Committee member Plodprasob
      Suraswadee said that initial investigation
      had found that more than 13,000 logs
      seized last year were actually felled in the
      Salween area and were not from Burma as
      some people had claimed. 

      ''Almost all of them were cut in the Salween
      forests. There are only about 1,000 logs
      that were imported lawfully with certificates
      of origin,'' he said, adding that logs illegally
      felled by Karen refugees were sent to
      Burma and then returned to Thailand under
      the guise that the logs had originated there.

      He also blamed the import of logs,
      originally felled in Salween, from Burma on
      the lack of coordination among Thai
      officials. 

      Plodprasob, who heads the committee's
      working group looking into logging, said his
      team believes that the opening of
      temporary border checkpoints had led to
      illegal logging in Thailand. 

      Deputy national police chief Sant
      Sarutanon, secretary of the working group
      looking for culprits in the logging scandal,
      said three groups of people are involved:
      business people, government officials and
      people who have the authority to approve
      the opening of temporary checkpoints. 

      Kajadpai Burutpat, who chairs the working
      group gathering information on logging firm
      applications for the opening of temporary
      checkpoints and Karen refugees, said that
      there had been 48 companies importing
      logs totalling more than three million cubic
      metres between 1989 and 1991. 

      The firm that most frequently asked for the
      opening of a temporary border checkpoint
      was Skabee, who made an application in
      1996, he said. 

      Karen refugees who fled violence in Burma
      have continuously destroyed the Salween
      forests. The Interior Ministry and the military
      have tried to move 12,000 Karen refugees
      from the area, Kajadpai said. 

      ''If you don't move them from the area,
      problems with the Salween forests will be
      endless,'' he said, adding that only 250
      Karen refugees had been moved so far. 

      The Nation