Independent monitoring of the nation’s timber industry has all but stopped since November when a schedule of meetings between Global Witness and the government’s Forestry Department fell apart, according to several people involved.
Triggering the breakdown in relations was the death of the Forest Crime Monitoring and Reporting Project, an effort funded by the UN Development Program and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to collect evidence of forest crimes.
The 3-year-old project was suspended in October pending a review of its effectiveness, and its last adviser, M Pushparajah, was let go.
After the project closed in mid-October, the Department of Forestry continued to have weekly meetings with Global Witness monitors but then those stopped, and communication came to a total halt, said Eva Galabru, country director for Global Witness.
Today, reports of forest crimes continue to come into Global Witness’ Phnom Penh offices via its network of sources around the country, but the reports stop there, to the frustration of the independent monitor.
“Dear donors, what do we do with reports of illegal logging?” asked Eva Galabru, country director of Global Witness. “There is a lot of illegal logging going on unhindered.”
Galabru said she would continue to send the reports to the government despite the loss of the forest crimes reporting project, but since the government has not yet acted on earlier reports of illegal logging, handing in more reports now seems pointless, she suggested.
“When that doesn’t work, doing more of the same won’t fix it,” she said.
Ty Sokhun, director of the Forestry Department, said his own staff of 11 continues to compile reports collected by 24 government sources in the field, a system of monitoring that he says is part of the department’s normal duties. Last year, he said, they recorded 767 cases involving forest crimes.
The government’s monitoring, however, does not meet the threshold set by the International Monetary Fund in 1999 when it required the appointment of an independent forestry monitor to oversee the corruption-plagued timber sector.
The IMF added urgency to its demand when in 1996 it suspended $60 million in loans until the monitor was appointed.
Still, even when Global Witness was handing in reports, they sometimes did not lead to effective prosecution of timber companies caught violating the law, the independent monitor has complained.
Many of the reports got no further than the forest crimes database that was assembled by the forest crimes reporting project now under suspension.
A complete review of the forest crimes reporting project has been completed but not yet discussed with all relevant partners, according to Simon Bland, senior rural livelihoods adviser for the UK Department for International Development.
“The future [of the project] is by no means certain,” Bland said.
If it were continued, Global Witness would again have a scheme for reporting crimes witnessed by its staff and sources, but the decision to resume the project lies with the two UN agencies that had previously funded it.
On Thursday, neither the head of the UNDP in Cambodia, Dominique McAdams, nor the country representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Cambodia, Jean-Claude LeVasseur, returned phone calls seeking an explanation of the project’s future.
The loss of independent monitoring of Cambodia’s forestry sector could not have come at a worse time: Prime Minister Hun Sen has called for the expulsion of Global Witness for what he says are exaggerated claims of police abuse stemming from a Dec 5 anti-logging rally that was forcibly broken up.
The government contends that Galabru, as director of Global Witness locally, incited the villagers who attended the rally to protest against the government. Hun Sen and a government spokesman have also questioned the reports that one man died of a heart attack shortly after the melee and seven people were hospitalized.
A Global Witness videotape of the incident shows villagers fleeing baton-wielding police but does not show police hitting villagers, as was alleged. The cameraman’s view of the confrontation was not good—he stood across the street and behind two police trucks from the driveway where the alleged violence took place.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Thursday that a legal team continues to study the case of Global Witness while considering possible legal action against the environmental group.
He added that, in his opinion, the problem was not with Global Witness but its director.
“I think all of this scandal was made by Eva Galabru, not Global Witness,” he said. “My idea is that we don’t need to take action against Global Witness because they get the reports from Eva Galabru.”
He said a lawsuit against Global Witness may not serve the government either, however.
“The government may decide to drop the case because it’s no good to make a big case of this issue. For me, in my opinion, you show that Eva Galabru lies is more than enough.”
