Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday attacked international forestry watchdog Global Witness, saying it is leading a politically motivated campaign to undermine his government’s efforts to stop illegal logging.
Hun Sen said the London-based group has used its most recent report on illegal logging to destroy “the reputation of local authorities, competent officials and the government.”
“Global Witness stands behind a very bad political platform,” he said at the closing of the Interior Ministry’s annual meeting. “Maybe they think that I will step down from my job, as I agreed with the donors if I could not stop illegal logging.”
Global Witness released its report to the media and donors just days before Monday’s international donors-government meeting in Phnom Penh, but the group did not give the government a copy, Hun Sen said.
Jon Buckrell, spokesman for Global Witness, said the report “was e-mailed to representatives of the department of forestry and wildlife, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Environment on Jan 25, before it was released to the press.”
“In retrospect, a representative from Global Witness should have formally delivered the report to the government in person,” he said, adding that the government “should have been given the report earlier.”
Buckrell said the agency issued an apology to Hun Sen on Tuesday. “Global Witness views the personal commitment of the prime minister to reform the forest sector as the single most important factor in the substantial progress that has been made since the January 1999 crackdown,” he said.
But Hun Sen said apologies are not enough.
“I don’t just want an apology from Global Witness, I want them to explain this problem,” he said.
The report accuses government officials in the Department of Forestry and Wildlife of supporting illegal logging either through direct collusion or tacitly through laziness or a lack of capacity to root out illegal activity.
Logging concessionaires are now operating with the same disregard for the law that they did before Hun Sen launched a logging crackdown in January 1999, the report states.
Hun Sen, who said Wednesday that he had still not received a copy of the report, asked at Monday’s donor meeting why the media, but not the government, had received the report.
Hun Sen said an investigation has begun to determine Global Witness’ legal status in Cambodia and their activities which, he said have fouled up government’s effort to stop illegal logging.
“According to the latest research, Global Witness does not have enough validity and legality to stay in Cambodia any longer,” Hun Sen said.
“They do not have the right to carry out activities in Cambodia and do not even have a right to receive a visa to come to Cambodia,” said Hun Sen.
He warned that the organization could face expulsion and its staff refused entry visas to Cambodia. Global Witness was brought in to monitor the forestry sector because donors felt an independent watchdog was needed to review the government’s forestry reforms. The International Monetary Fund also made the independent monitoring aspect a condition of the forest crime monitoring program, which is funding by Britain and AusAid.
“The government has the right to do anything they like because they are sovereign,” said Urooj Malik, country representative of the Asian Development Bank, which commissioned Global Witness to oversee logging in the country.
However, Malik said, a certain partnership must be maintained between all stakeholders, including donors, citizens, companies, the government and monitoring agencies.
Ty Sokhun, director of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Department of Forestry and Wildlife, said Wednesday that Global Witness has not cooperated with the government on anti-logging investigations and has been keeping the press better informed on its activities in Cambodia than the government.
“Global Witness has been working to find fault with inspection partners rather than trying to arrest the real criminals,” Ty Sokhun said.
However, Ty Sokhun would not comment on whether Global Witness should cease working in Cambodia.
An international conservation official working in Cambodia said the country’s forests would be in worse shape today without Global Witness—and would suffer if the group left Cambodia.
“If they hadn’t been here, things would be a lot worse,” he said. “They’ve done an amazing job of bringing illegal logging to global attention. If Hun Sen’s kicking them out, he’s playing into their hands, that they’re doing too good a job.”
Hun Sen said government officials are committed to investigating all reports of illegal logging, but said information from Global Witness is sometimes unreliable.
“All information that Global Witness gives is incorrect, except one time….Since then Global Witness has stopped passing information to the government, and instead has been passing it to the newspapers and the Internet,” Hun Sen said.
“We welcome assistance,” he said, “but not assistance that tries to destroy us.”
(Additional reporting Brian Calvert and Pin Sisovann)
