G LOBAL WITNESS directors Patrick Alley and Simon Taylor will lobby the American Senate
and the House of Representatives in early 1996 with further evidence of Thai military/Khmer
Rouge complicity in illegal Cambodian logging.
They will also be at the next ICORC meeting in June with evidence that the Cambodian
military were cooperating with the Khmer Rouge in the same trade. "You can't
talk about the human rights problem [in Cambodia] without talking about where the
root of the problem lies," Taylor said. "[Illegal] logging is not an environmental
problem any more than a human rights problem... it's the link between the two."
Global Witness recorded statements from soldiers in a Thai-controlled logging "rest
area" on the Thai side of the Anglong Veng border, saying that they paid both
Khmer Government soldiers for the logs and the Khmer Rouge, who they "partied
with" at nights.
Despite Cambodia being "low on the priority list", Alley said that there
were people in key committees concerned in the issue of KR complicity.
