How the World Bank funds illegal logging in Cambodia and Laos

 

Environmental watchdog Global Witness says Deutsche Bank and the World Bank didn’t do their homework before investing in unlawful Vietnamese rubber companies.

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/cambodia/130513/world-bank-deutsche-illegal-logging-laos-vietnam

Denise Hruby | May 14, 2013 06:12

Cambodian workers collect and process piles of illegally logged luxury wood in the forest in Oddar Meanchey province. (Stringer/GlobalPost)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Five-months pregnant, Im Chanthy was told that her husband’s body had been found in the trunk of his car, brutally hacked to death for reporting on illegal logging and land concessions in Cambodia.

Many of these concessions, a new report by environmental watchdog Global Witness found, are owned by two Vietnamese rubber companies, which — with the financial support of Deutsche Bank, an arm of the World Bank and local governments — have acquired more than 500,000 acres of land in Cambodia and neighboring Laos.

The companies and officials involved have made millions growing resin trees and harvesting their sap to make rubber, while thousands of poor Cambodians and Laotians lost the little they had. Villagers have been sued and prosecuted, intimidated, threatened and shot at while trying to defend their livelihoods.

Heng Serei Odom, the journalist, paid with his life, and his wife Chanthy is now raising their 5-month old daughter on construction sites. She works carrying sand bag after sand bag for $2.50 a day — too little to eat properly, or care for her sick child.

“I move around from one construction site to the other, where I build small tents to stay there temporarily. That’s why my daughter is sick a lot, because she has no proper accommodation to shade her and I don’t have enough milk to feed her,” Chanthy said.

The companies in question continue undeterred despite allegedly being aware that many of their undertakings, such as the extensive logging of timber in national parks, are illegal, according to “Rubber Barons,” the report released by London-based Global Witness on Monday that sheds light on the secretive operations of Hoan Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and the Vietnamese Rubber Group (VRG).

Germany‘s Deutsche Bank, according to the report, holds $3.3 million in a subsidiary of VRG, which is chiefly owned by the Vietnamese government, and $4.5 million in the privately owned HAGL. The International Finance Cooperation (IFC), which is an arm of the World Bank, indirectly funds HAGL through its $14.95 million share in a Vietnam-based fund that invests in HAGL.

“We’ve known for some time that corrupt politicians in Cambodia and Laos are orchestrating the land-grabbing crisis that is doing so much damage in the region. This report completes the picture by exposing the pivotal role of Vietnam’s rubber barons and their financiers, Deutsche Bank and IFC,” said Megan MacInnes, who runs Global Witness’ land team.

Both Southeast Asian governments have argued that the land concessions granted to HAGL and VRG will help develop the poor countries and turn simple, self-reliant farmers into plantation workers.

But in reality, the 165,000 acres HAGL, VRG and affiliated companies hold in Laos and the 445,000 acres Global Witness identified in northeastern Cambodia have brought misery and despair to communities that depend on the forests, the report shows.

Bulldozers arriving are often the first sign of a fight for land the poor countryside stands to lose. Houses have been demolished, farms flattened, cemeteries dug up, and trees in which holly spirits are said to live have been uprooted.

“Losing the forest is like losing life,” a villager told Global Witness, describing how essential the fast evergreen and semi-evergreen forests are for the community.

HAGL and VRG have made millions off the plantations and the illegal selling of luxury wood. Between 2001 and 2011, prices for natural rubber increased ten-fold and reached about $3,600 per tonne last year, when Vietnam became the world’s third-largest producer of rubber.

Most rubber is shipped to China, where it is processed and exported to the United States and Japan. As demand surges, the tight supply has fueled HAGL’s and VRG’s land-grabbing in Cambodia and Laos.

In addition, luxury rosewood grows inside the land concessions, which is illegally logged and exported, Global Witness says.

“The revenues are a planned part of the companies’ financial plan for the concessions — the impression given is that without these revenues, the concession would not be economically viable,” says Josie Cohen, a researcher for Global Witness.

More from GlobalPost: Illegal logging, from the rainforest to your dining room

In northeastern Cambodia, Dong Nai, a member of VRG is estimated to have logged 30 percent of the total forest in the area, amounting to about 10,000 resin trees, which are used for the production of varnishes or perfumes, for example.

For 100 resin trees, the company offered to pay between $250 to $330 in compensation, a sum the families would make from tapping the tree in two to three months, they said.

But reports and complaints the residents filed regarding Dong Nai’s illicit activities went unanswered — most likely due to the involvement of a cousin of prime minister and strongman Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for almost 30 years. Senior government officials, including the minister of land management, have visited the community to convince residents of the company’s good intentions.

Residents protesting the illicit timber trade in Cambodia are threatened by police and military police paid to guard the concessions, and have even shot live rounds. May 16 marks the one-year anniversary of the killing of a 14-year-old girl protesting a rubber concession by officials.

Despite Deutsche Bank’s and the IFC’s claim that they are respecting human rights, environmental and anti-corruption standards, Global Witness says that they didn’t properly research the companies before investing millions of dollars in HAGL and VRG.

“The suffering that [VRG and HAGL] have inflicted on local people, however, gives claims that they contribute to the two countries’ development a distinctly hollow ring. It also begs the question: What sort of institutions could countenance financing companies such as these?” the report concludes.

And while hundreds of thousands of Cambodians see their existence threatened — or already destroyed — a culture of impunity surrounds those responsible.

“We very much hope — for the sake of the communities whose livelihoods, forests, burial grounds and spirit forests have been destroyed — that those responsible are brought to justice,” Cohen said.

Neither government holds a positive track record in pursuing powerful and well-connected perpetrators. But international pressure has helped in some recent cases, such as the killing of journalist Heng Serei Odom, who worked to uncover similar ties between officials, rubber plantations and illegal logging. Earlier this month prosecutors announced that the case be reinvestigated.

Justice would offer some solace, Chanthy, the young mother, said.

“I am so happy that the court decided to reinvestigate the killing of my husband, and I hope that all perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished,” Chanthy said.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/cambodia/130513/world-bank-deutsche-illegal-logging-laos-vietnam

Cambodia’s Outbreak Linked to Hand, Foot, Mouth Virus

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-08/mystery-disease-investigation-in-cambodia-advances-on-virus-find

By Natasha Khan and Daniel Ten Kate on July 09, 2012

Researchers found a virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease in patients who succumbed to an illness that has killed dozens of children in Cambodia.

The Institut Pasteur du Cambodge discovered enterovirus 71 in 15 of 24 children presenting with the symptoms since mid- June, Philippe Buchy, head of the Phnom Penh-based institute’s virology unit, said yesterday by phone. The virus may be linked to the deaths of more than 60 children across the country since April, he said.

“This information is valuable and will help the investigation tremendously,” said Nima Asgari, leader of the emerging diseases surveillance and response group at the World Health Organization in Cambodia, which is helping the local Ministry of Health find the cause of the illness.

Samples tested were negative for influenzas including H5N1, or bird flu, SARS and Nipah virus, the Ministry of Health and WHO said in a joint statement yesterday. If enterovirus 71 is further confirmed, “it is in a sense reassuring — at least we know it’s not a new virus that has stepped out of the woodwork,” said Malik Peiris, chair professor in virology at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health.

The investigators are reviewing the records of cases in which hospitalized children died before the tests started to confirm they “at least clinically and epidemiologically” fit the hand, foot and mouth disease profile, Asgari said in an e- mailed response to questions.

‘Unknown Disease’

A total of 59 children were affected by this “unknown disease,” according to a review of suspected hospitalized cases, the Ministry of Health and WHO said.

The Southeast Asian kingdom’s health ministry announced July 4 that it was working with the WHO to actively investigate the cause of the deaths. The majority of the patients were hospitalized in the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh, the WHO said in a July 6 statement.

Children admitted to hospitals with symptoms including high fever, breathing difficulty and neurological problems had rapid deterioration of respiratory function, Joy Rivaca Caminade, a technical officer with WHO’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific in Manila, said July 6.

The affected children developed “in the last hours of their life a total destruction of the alveolas in the lungs,” Beat Richner, head of the hospital, said yesterday in an e- mailed statement. They also suffered encephalitis, he said.

Vorn Pov

Among the dead was Vorn Pov, whom his father said was 12 years old. In Cambodia, it’s common to add a year when counting ages. Vorn Pov died on June 23, about a week after he first became sick. His father, Khuth Vorn, 53, lives in a wooden thatched roof house next to lush green rice fields in Prey Veng province, southeast of Phnom Penh near the border with Vietnam.

When Vorn Pov first got sick, Khuth Vorn took him to a local clinic, where he stayed for three days. He was transferred to a private clinic in Prey Veng provincial town for four days when his condition worsened, after which he was taken to the Kantha Bopha hospital, Khuth Vorn said. His son arrived at 5 p.m. and was pronounced dead four hours later.

“The doctors said his lungs had burned,” Khuth Vorn said, sitting shirtless at a stone table as half-a-dozen barefooted small children played around him in dirt littered with plastic bags, empty soda bottles and discarded cigarette packages. “My wife was sobbing. We felt helpless.”

Provincial and district officials visited him yesterday to find out more details about his son’s illness, he said.

Iceberg Effect

“If EV-71 is the explanation, what very likely occurred is a massive outbreak of hand, mouth and foot disease, which might not have hit the radar because it’s generally a mild disease and lasts for a few days,” said Peiris.

Peiris explained that in epidemiology there is what is called the iceberg effect: where only a small percentage of the affected present as a serious disease. “What is different could be the host’s ability to combat the disease,” he said.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common infectious disease in infants and children, according to the joint release. It is spread from person to person by direct contact with nose or throat discharges, saliva, fluid from blisters, or the feces of the infected, according to the release.

The coxsackievirus A16 is the most common cause of hand, foot and mouth disease, according to the release, which usually results in a “mild, self-limited disease with few complications.” Enterovirus 71 “causes the same picture of the disease, and in some cases it has the predilection to hit the brain stem region, which may explain the complications seen in the Cambodian patients,” Peiris said.

The majority of the children affected by the illness were less than 3 years old, according to the joint statement.

“We hope to be able to conclude our investigation in the coming days,” Cambodia’s Minister of Health Mam BunHeng, said in the joint release.

To contact the reporters on this story: Natasha Khan in Hong Kong at nkhan51@bloomberg.net; Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jason Gale at j.gale@bloomberg.net; Tony Jordan at tjordan3@bloomberg.net

Cambodian troops seal off village after land clashes

Human rights workers denied entry after 15-year-old girl dies in latest confrontation over land development

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/17/cambodian-troops-land-clashes?newsfeed=true

• Associated Press in Phnom Penh
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 May 2012 04.55 EDT

Rice farmers near Phnom Penh: Cambodia’s system of commercial land concessions has been criticised as corrupt and prompted a UN inquiry. Photograph: Heng Sinith/AP

Security forces have sealed off a village in eastern Cambodia and denied entry to human rights workers after the fatal shooting of a teenager in the latest violent eviction aimed at clearing land for development.

Soldiers said they needed to secure the area around Proma village, in eastern Kratie province, to continue the search for five accused ringleaders involved in a clash with security forces a day earlier, said Chan Soveth, a prominent investigator with Cambodian human rights group Adhoc.

He said journalists and human rights activists were initially moved to an area half a mile (1km) from the village but then pushed farther back, raising concerns about the soldiers’ conduct and the safety of the villagers.

The interior ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement alleging the protesters were an “anarchic group” trying to set up a self-governing zone outside the law. It accused demonstrators of abducting two soldiers and seizing their weapons.

Cambodia’s system of commercial land concessions, decried by activists as opaque and corrupt, has become a volatile issue nationwide and prompted a UN inquiry. Last month, a high-profile activist was shot dead by a military police officer after investigating illegal logging in a forest concession.

On Wednesday, hundreds of police and soldiers raided the settlement in Kratie province after community leaders rejected demands to vacate their farmland, officials said. Security forces clashed with about 200 villagers armed with axes, crossbows and sticks. A 15-year-old girl was critically wounded in the confrontation and later died at a hospital, said the provincial governor, Sar Chamrong.

“The soldiers told us we were not allowed to go inside to see the situation, “Chan Soveth said on Thursday. “We don’t know what is happening inside. We are concerned for the safety of the villagers.”

He said villagers who left the security perimeter were searched before being allowed to return home.

Authorities say the land is owned by the government, but the activists claim the previously state-owned land already has been awarded to a Russian company to be developed as a plantation. Villagers who have been farming the land for years say they have nowhere else to go.

The incident is the latest fallout from widespread evictions and land grabs that have sparked unrest nationwide, with deadly force sometimes employed by both public and private security forces.

The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, issued a directive last week suspending new land concessions to private companies and ordering a review of existing deals. The move was announced during a visit by a UN human rights envoy who warned that land disputes in Cambodia must be resolved fairly and peacefully.

Cambodia: Security forces kill teenage girl during in Mass Eviction ‎

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/cambodian-security-forces-kill-teenage-girl-during-clash-with-villagers-armed-with-axes-and-crossbows-7758004.html

By

Andrew Buncombe, Kounila Keo

Phnom Penh:  Wednesday 16 May 2012

Security forces in Cambodia have killed a teenage girl during a clash with villagers armed with axes and crossbows in the latest of a series of violent evictions aimed at clearing land for development.

Reports said that during a clash between up to 400 soldiers and police and villagers in Kratie province in the east of the country, a 15-year-old girl was badly injured. She subsequently died of her injuries in hospital, according to the Associated Press.

Provincial official Sar Chamrong said government forces had secured the area and were hunting for five accused ringleaders who had escaped. He claimed the protesters were trying to set up a self-governing zone outside of the law. Authorities say the land is owned by the government, but villagers say the previously state-owned land already has been awarded to a Russian company.

Cambodia’s system of land concessions, which campaigners say is riddled with corruption, became an international issue and the focus of a UN inquiry last month, following the killing of a high profile environmental activist. Under intense pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a directive a week ago suspending new concessions to private companies and ordering a review of existing ones. The move was announced during a visit by a UN human rights envoy.

The envoy’s visit followed the killing last month of 46-year-old Chut Wutty, who headed the National Resources Protection Group and had exposed a series of logging scandals involving corrupt officials. He was shot dead by security forces as he escorted journalists from a local newspaper to investigate alleged illegal activities in Koh Kong province. After an altercation with military police, he was killed by an officer. Police initially claimed the officer subsequently shot himself in a fit of remorse.

The killing of the father-of-two stunned activists in Cambodia and beyond. Few believe the police’s explanation for his death and as more details have emerged, the story has looked increasingly unlikely. The EU and UN have called for an independent inquiry.

Chut Wutty’s wife, Sam Chanthy, told The Independent she did not believe what she had been told. “After my husband’s death, I’ve had fear and worry about the safety of my children and myself,” she said. “My husband used to be the main bread-winner for the family, but after he’s gone I don’t know what it’ll be like. It’ll be very difficult for me to bring up two daughters and one son alone.”

She added: “On the day when I was told of my husband’s death, I was very shocked as if something pierced through my chest and my heart was taken away from me. He died on his mission to save the country.”

Chut Wutty was killed while travelling in the Cardamom Mountains in the country’s south-west. He and the reporters from The Cambodia Daily had apparently stopped to take photographs when they were approached by armed men who demanded they delete their cameras’ memory cards. A report subsequently published in the newspaper said that after a protracted argument, the activist was shot while sitting in his car.

The two female reporters who then ran for cover and say they did not see who did the shooting, said two shots were fired. When they returned to the vehicle they saw the body of a military policeman, later identified as In Rattana, sprawled next to the car. The women tried first-aid to save Mr Wutty but the armed men did nothing to help.

“Despite the lack of clarity about what exactly happened, we are very concerned that the killing of Mr Wutty marks the latest and most lethal in a series of gun attacks on human rights defenders in Cambodia,” Rupert  Colville, a spokesman for the UN human rights office, told reporters in Geneva. “We urge the royal government to ensure that a full civilian judicial investigation proceeds speedily and with the utmost probity and independence.”

Campaigners in Cambodia have picked apart the explanations of the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Mr Wutty, on April 26. Police initially said the activist was killed in an exchange of gunfire but later said he had been killed by In Rattana, a military police officer who then shot himself.

But when campaigners pointed out that In Rattana had suffered two gunshot injuries – unlikely in a suicide – a third explanation was offered; namely that after In Rattana shot the activist, one of the other men, a guard employed by a private logging firm, Timbergreen, had rushed forward to try and take the gun from him. As he did so, it accidentally fired twice, striking In Rattana in the chest. According to police, the private guard, Ran Boroth, employed by the company Mr Wutty was investigating, has now been charged with involuntary homicide.

Police have since declared their investigation complete. Spokesman Tith Sothea told reporters in Phnom Penh: “We have shown the truth to the public. So our work is closed for now.”

Campaigners, unimpressed with the pronouncements of the authorities, say the killing of Mr Wutty was the latest in a series of attacks, threats and killings of activists, among them labour-rights campaigner Chea Vichea, who was assassinated in 2004. Mr Wutty had himself received a number of death threats but refused to give up his work highlighting illegal logging, in particular in the Prey Lang forest in the centre of Cambodia. Private logging and agricultural companies, local and foreign, are said to control around 10m acres of land in the country.

Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, which has investigated Mr Wutty killing, said activists faced both physical and legal threats as they went about their work. “Illegal deforestation is very lucrative. There are huge interests at stake,” he said. “There’s no doubt that those involved [in illegal logging] have links to the government. These people are always connected.”

A 2007 report by the group Global Witness highlighted what it said was a network that linked those involved in illegal logging with the police and military and senior politicians. “Cambodia is run by a kleptocratic elite that generates much of its wealth via the seizure of public assets, particularly natural resources,” the report concluded.

Megan MacInnes of Global Witness said of Mr Wutty’s death: “Sadly there is a long and well-documented history of activists trying to protect Cambodia’s [resources] being attacked and dying. This is not the first.”

The area in which Mr Wutty was killed is currently being cleared by Timbergreen, a private company registered in Cambodia, to make way for two dams to produce hydroelectricity. Construction of the Lower Russey Chrum dams is being carried out two Chinese state-owned firms. Mr Wutty had alleged the company was breaching its licence and cutting trees outside of the area it was permitted to do so.

Timbergreen owners have denied the allegations. The company’s majority shareholder, Khieu Sarsileap, said that the firm only cleared a few logs in the areas it has been given permission to work in. “We are clearing logs only in the reservoir, and even in the reservoir itself, we can’t finish it up; we have to do it fast because we have a contract,” she said.

“In Chut Wutty’s case, I am sorry that it happened to him, but my company wasn’t in any way involved in that. Illegal logging is a problem happening throughout the country, and if anybody who is involved in illegal trading of woods or timber tells you that they are from Timbergreen, they are only lying to you.”

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Related:

• Teen Killed During Cambodia Land Eviction Protest Voice of America
• Teenage girl shot dead in Kratie land eviction‎ Phnom Penh Post
• Girl in Cambodia killed during violent eviction‎ Fox News
• Teenage girl shot dead in Cambodia land protest‎ BBC News