Lauded activist attacked while patrolling Prey Lang forest
Tue, 29 March 2016
Phak Seangly and Igor Kossov
Axe-wielding assailants injured a well-known environmental activist from the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) as she was patrolling a section of Prey Lang forest in Kratie province with her group early on Sunday morning.



Phon Sopheak, 25, who accepted an award from the United Nations Development Programme on behalf of the PLCN in Paris last year, suffered a deep wound to her left leg and a smaller wound to her calf as she was resting.

“I think I was likely attacked with an axe,” Sopheak – who was unable to see her assailants in the dark of the forest – said in a phone call from Kratie Provincial Hospital yesterday.

Prey Lang experts said that as loggers push deeper into the forest, as valuable timber dwindles and as locals’ patience runs short, violent confrontations become likelier.

Sopheak was among 52 activists from PLCN patrolling the forest on 45 motorbikes between Wednesday and Sunday.

During the sweep, which the group has done routinely over the past 10 years, they intercepted multiple logging operations, seizing 14 chainsaws and more than 10 cubic metres of timber.

The activists coerced over 20 loggers to sign agreements promising to stop committing forestry crimes. One group of 10 loggers likely decided to retaliate with a nighttime sneak attack, according to activist Phay Bunleang.

The patrol team was sleeping in their hammocks, when one of their lookouts saw a light moving towards Sopheak. The activists assumed it belonged to one of them.

“I heard my motorbike fall on me – that woke me up,” said Sopheak. “I did not realise that I was attacked until I looked at my leg.”

The activists could not make out the attackers’ identities or their total number. They did not follow the fleeing assailants, concerned that they might be armed.

Since the 10 loggers detained earlier all hail from Kampong Thom, the activists plan to look up their identities

“Such an attack has never happened to us before,” said Hoeun Sopheap, another activist who went with Sopheak to Paris. “We are concerned about our work and afraid this will make some activists feel fear and stop patrolling with us.”

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: Even weirder is the fact that they weren't accompanied by any police or military guards... If you're going to be confrontational and "seize" equipment, I'd think you'd want some protection. .

Commune Chief Found With Over 17 Tons of Illegal Rosewood

BY AUN PHEAP | MARCH 29, 2016

Police in Tbong Khmum province found more than 4,000 pieces of undocumented rosewood after raiding the home of a commune chief over the weekend but chose not to arrest the official pending further investigation.

Chan Tara, an assistant to provincial court prosecutor Heang Sopheak, said 10 officers raided the home of Hem Yiep, the chief of Ponhea Krek district’s Trapaing Phlong commune, on Saturday morning, acting on a tip from a resident. There, inside a large shed used to house pigs, they found 4,696 pieces of rosewood weighing a total of 17.7 tons.


Mr. Tara said the commune chief, a CPP member, attempted to persuade authorities not to take the valuable wood, arguing that prosecuting the case would cost the party votes in upcoming elections.

“The commune chief tried to stop us from entering the pig shed to see the rosewood, and he accused us of inspecting it illegally and said votes would be lost because of the court action. But I replied that we will lose only one vote—from the commune chief’s family—because he was smuggling rosewood,” he said.

Mr. Tara said police who seized the wood did not arrest the commune chief, however, because they first wanted to investigate the case further, noting that Mr. Yiep initially said the shed was his but later claimed it belonged to his daughter.

“We will issue a court warrant to arrest the commune chief if he refuses to give a clear explanation to the Forestry Administration because we suspect that he is involved with the rosewood,” he said. “If the commune chief denies ownership of the rosewood, he is still responsible for the crime because he provided a place for someone to hide it.”

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Yiep said the shed was his daughter’s. And after claiming that the wood belonged to a friend of his, however, he said that it, too, belonged to his daughter—and that it was none of his business.

“I am not involved with this rosewood. My daughter owns the wood, and I never worry about her business,” he said, adding that he had no intention of speaking with the Forestry Administration.

“I will not go to give answer to the Forestry Administration because I am not involved,” he said. “My children deal the wood.”

Military-Forestry Standoff Highlights Old Problem

BY ZSOMBOR PETER AND AUN PHEAP | APRIL 2, 2016

On the morning of March 28 in the northwestern province of Oddar Meanchey, just a few miles from the Thai border, 10 soldiers stormed the Forestry Administration’s head office in Anlong Veng district, their guns drawn.


Soldiers surrender a truckload of rosewood they were attempting to smuggle through Siem Reap province in 2011. (Lay Vesna)

The soldiers, from Division 2, Platoon 243, of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), were not after criminals. According to the Forestry Administration’s local division chief, Khorn Khem, they were the criminals, come to take back a platoon truck he had seized the week before for illegally transporting a haul of timber through the district. After a five-hour standoff with the unarmed forestry officials, the soldiers eventually left empty-handed.

The military police, meant to check such military abuse, say they won’t investigate the raid because no one was hurt and brushed it off as a “misunderstanding.”

But the tug-of-war between Cambodia’s military and its other security forces, including its unarmed and ill-equipped forest rangers, over the country’s disappearing trees is an old one. Low-level police and forestry officials have been ignored, threatened and robbed by soldiers and military police suspected of defending their piece of the country’s illegal logging trade. Some have died. In November, a soldier was one of seven suspects arrested over the recent fatal shooting of a forestry ranger on an overnight patrol for illegal loggers in Preah Vihear province, but no one has yet been charged for the crime.

Marcus Hardtke, who has worked with a number of forest and conservation groups in Cambodia since the mid-1990s, said the military and illegal loggers have effectively established a “symbiotic” relationship, each side relying on the other.

“The illegal business needs the muscle to protect their interests and to operate with immunity, while the guys with the guns make partnerships like that [as] part of their revenue stream,” he said.

No group has done more to expose the cozy relationship between the armed forces and loggers than Global Witness, the London-based environmental protection group.

In 2005, it released “Taking a Cut,” a damning report—promptly seized by the government—detailing a network of state institutions and top security officials greasing a thriving illegal logging trade in the Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary. It names a number of military units and ranking officers whose soldiers were seen logging illegally or moving illicit timber out of the area, and says the military police—under the command, then as now, of General Sao Sokha—provided protection down the supply chain.

In 2007, it released “Cambodia’s Family Tree,” another report—also seized by the government—accusing several officials and their kin of operating a vast illegal logging syndicate. It calls the army’s Brigade 70 a “nationwide timber trafficking service” moving ill-gotten logs across the country.

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Government Announces Five New Protected Forests

BY KUCH NAREN | APRIL 2, 2016

Following Prime Minister HE’s announcement on Thursday that the government would extend protected status to more forestland, the Environment Ministry on Friday released full details on five new protected areas covering a total of 950,000 hectares.

In a statement, the ministry said the new protected areas comprised parts of Prey Lang forest in Kompong Thom, Kratie and Stung Treng provinces; Prey Chrak Robieng Khang Tbong forest in Koh Kong, Pursat and Kompong Speu provinces; Prey Preah Rokar forest in Preah Vihear province; Prey Siem Pang Lech forest in Stung Treng province; and Prey Voen Sai forest in Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri.

All five forests were previously controlled by the Agriculture Ministry, but were recently handed over to the Environment Ministry in accordance with new efforts to disentangle the overlapping functions of the two government bodies.

The Environment Ministry was previously responsible for certain land concessions while the Agriculture Ministry handled some protected areas, but now the Environment Ministry will be wholly responsible for conservation and environmental protection, while the Agriculture Ministry will oversee all land concessions, Mr. HE announced in February.

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:At first glance I'm likely to believe it as loggers and their backers will resort to violence if needed. However, it is kind of weird that in the dark of he night, the assailants were able to find her amongst 52 sleeping people... Even weirder is the fact that they weren't accompanied by any police or military guards... If you're going to be confrontational and "seize" equipment, I'd think you'd want some protection. Still, I applaud what they're doing as Cambodia's forests are all but gone and don't get the attention and effort they deserve.