From: kamol@ipied.tu.ac.TH (Kamol Hengkietisak)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Bangkok Post Jan 10: Logging woe stories
Date: 11 Jan 1993 16:52:02 +1100
Organization: Mail/News gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au

 
by Sombat Raksakul
 
WHILE Thais throughout the country were gearing up for a New Year 
celebration, more than 5,000 of their compatriots were hard at 
work deep inside forests in Cambodia, desperately trying to haul 
as many hardwood logs as they could across the border into 
Thailand to beat the December 31 deadline on log import ban.
 
For both logging investors and their workers, each cubic metre of 
hard wood means money to repay their loans and interest on them. 
But with time running out faster than they could haul the wood, 
they were helplessly looking at their investment evaporating as 
the New Year approached.
 
The Cambodian tropical rain forest across from Chong Sa-ngam Pass 
at Ban Natambon in Phusing sub-district of Si Sa Ket Province is 
one of the most complete natural forests across Lower Northeast of 
Thailand.
 
Here, more than 500 log trucks were lining up along the 
11-kilometre stretch of road leading from the log yards in a Khmer 
Rouge-controlled area to the Thai border. The Khmer Rouge cadres, 
who have so far refused to join the Cambodian peace process, were 
employing every possible means to facilitate the loggers to get 
their merchandise across the border before the barriers came down.
 
When the clock struck midnight on December 31, less than five per 
cent of all felled logs managed to make it through.
 
"The UN sanction is beyond my expectation," moaned teary-eyed 
Sayant Boontod, owner of a petrol station in Phusing sub-district 
of Si Sa Ket Province.
 
Lured by the prospect of a quick profit, Mrs Sayant two years ago 
took a 140-million-baht bank loan to set up Kukan Aroonsawasdi Ltd 
Part to operate a logging concession at Chong Sa-ngam Pass. Now 
that the long-awaited ban on logg+p,HY<port imposed by the United 
Nations and Cambodia's Supreme National Council (SNC) has come to 
pass, she and other "new capitalists" like her are helplessly 
looking at their investment trapped inside the country at the 
brink of a new round of violence.
 
"I thought that I'd complied with all legal requirements in 
setting up my business. I spent more than two years to get the 
proper permit from the Government," she said.
 
"Now I'm heavily in dept. My petrol station is in danger of being 
confiscated by the banks."
 
Three other companies in the same area share the same fate as Mrs 
Sayant's. These are PC Udon Supplies Co Ltd, Mor Lor Lor 33 Co 
Ltd, and Surin Thanapong Construction Ltd Part. Each of the four 
companies had received a five-year concession from the Khmer Rouge 
to fell a total of 300,000 cubic metres of logs, and each had 
invested an average of 150 million baht to carry out the deal. The 
four companies have sub-contracted portions of their concessions 
to some 20 other investors.
 
By midnight on December 31, PC Udon Supplies Co Ltd was able to 
move only 8,000 cubic metres of the felled logs. Owner Sirisin 
Prateepasen complained that this amount of logs, once sold, would 
not be enough even to pay the interest on his loan.
 
"A few days before the deadline, the traffic at Chong Sa-ngam Pass 
was caught in a terrible confusion of log trucks. They were 
mobilised from everywhere in the Northeast to try to bring in as 
many logs as possible out of Cambodia," Mr Sirisin said, recalling 
the scene of near pandemonium as the deadline drew near.
 
All the companies competed with each other to get their trucks 
out, but the traffic was more than the road could accommodate. 
Used to be able to zoom down the road on normal days, now the log 
trucks were jammed in a long queue from the thick jungle in the 
Khmer Rouge-controlled area to pass checkpoints across the Thai 
border.
 
Before the border closure, logging investors had banked their 
hopes on the Government to negotiate with the UN and the SNC for 
an extension of the deadline, perhaps for another six months or 
so. But their hopes were dashed as the Government failed to secure 
the agreement, and they looked on helplessly as the barriers came 
down and Thai border officials evacuated, leaving only a skeleton 
crew to man the closed checkpoints.
 
Now many investors are looking in the face of bankruptcy in 
contrast to the time not long ago when all they saw were baht 
notes dancing in their eyes as they gazed across the border at the 
lush Cambodian forests.
 
Mr Sirisin blamed his misfortune not on the four antagonistic 
Cambodian factions nor on the United Nations, but on the Thai 
government which he charged have misled people to believe that 
they would reap huge benefits from doing business in Cambodia. 
Many business persons in the same situation apparently share his 
view.
 
Most of the investors are local business people in the Northeast. 
They got involved in the logging business in Cambodia during Gen 
Chatichai Choonhavan's administration which had proclaimed its 
policy to turn Indochina from "a battle field into a market 
place."
 
Lured by the government's promise of lucrative deals and high 
profits, these business people plunged into the new venture. Now 
they have become victimised by their ignorance of both local and 
regional politics which, in a short time, has turned the situation 
around.
 
"We have done no wrong. It's the government who has done us wrong. 
We became involved in this business because of the government's 
policy. We have complied with all their requirements," Mr Sirisin 
complained bitterly.
 
He had spent two years to go through the labourious process of 
applying for a permit to log in Cambodia, contacting 18 government 
agencies in four ministries, he said. In the process, he spent 
over 100 milion baht in cash to acquire the permit from the 
government and a concession from the Khmer Rouge, to purchase 
logging equipment and trucks and to employ thousands of workers to 
do the logging.
 
But business people are not the only ones to suffer the political 
turnabout. Ordinary villagers who became sub-contractors, workers, 
and hired-hands have also plunged down the same abyss. And if 
their financial loss is not as great as that of the business 
people, their plight and suffering are no less.
 
Last year's gruesome drought resulted in more than 100,000 people 
escaping from their poor villages, heading determinedly toward the 
Thai-Cambodian border to seek jobs with timber companies. They 
hoped to gain extra income in the dry season to alleviate their 
suffering from the year's famine and drought in their villages. 
But the unexpected had occurred, and they are left with 
unemployment and even more debts.
 
In the Khmer Rouge-controlled area in Siam Reap Province which is 
opposite the Chong Sa-ngum Pass alone, 8,000 people were listed as 
employed by the four companies and 20 sub-contractors. Mr Chat 
Lertsuparuekkul, manager of the Mor Lor Lor 33 Co, estimated that 
the number of workers not listed was probably as large.
 
These now unemployed workers had taken out loans from banks or 
relatives to buy logging equipment to work with the timber 
companies. As a condition in their employment, workers must have 
their own equipment. Some people who applied as drivers had 
mortgaged all their property to acquire necessary funding to 
modify their old trucks to haul logs. After signing the employment 
contact, timber companies generally paid between 50,000 to 100,000 
baht as advance payment to each driver.
 
Some people, hoping to gain even higher profit, had borrowed from 
banks to buy new trucks and hire drivers and workers to get a 
sub-contract from the logging companies. Each of them now faces a 
debt of 2 million baht in average. They say now that the border is 
closed, they have no choice but to let the banks take over their 
trucks.
 
Another group of Thais, whose hard life was generally unseen, 
unheard, and untold, eclipsed by the clamour made by people in the 
business and politics, are the poor people who worked as cutters 
in the thick jungle of Cambodia. Theirs was a risky profession. 
They worked in an environment surrounded by boobytraps and 
malaria. All of them, in addition, carried with them a debt of 
20,000 or 30,000 baht each, which they had borrowed from others to 
buy their own power saws.
 
"My family has nothing left. I'm utterly confused," lamented Mrs 
Noo Pomthalue. She said she was waiting for her husband, who has 
been trapped inside the Khmer Rouge-controlled area because of 
trouble with his truck.
 
She said that before coming to Chong Sa-ngam Pass, her family had 
migrated to work with timber companies in Burma. They had 
purchased a used truck for 80,000 baht.
 
While working in Burma, she said their truck ran over a landmine 
and was heavily damaged. Fortunately, her husband who drove the 
truck escaped uninsured but the family lost 300,000 baht 
immediately after the UN sanction took effective. The loan 
borrowed from a local financier was spent to modify her truck for 
the heavy-duty task of transporting logs. She said her family had 
since last month have migrated from her home district of Pone 
Phisai in Nong Khai Province.
 
Mrs Noo said her two sons had contacted malaria while working as 
cutters in Cambodian forests. They were being treated at a local 
hospital. She said she was desperate for money to pay the hospital 
fees.
 
"I don't know what we'll do next. I only know that when my husband 
returns and my sons recover, we won't be back home. We'll probably 
head for Bangkok to look for jobs there," she said.
 
Paithoon Yudee, a log trucker, revealed that not only people from 
remote villages were suffering, but local villagers around the 
Chong Sa-ngum Pass were also hard hit by debts.
 
"Some villagers borrowed from banks to build and renovate their 
houses to accommodate migrants," he said. Their average debt to 
the banks amounted to about 30,000 baht each.
He himself had hoped to gain extra income from his truck-driving 
job to repay the 60,000-baht debt which he owed the Bank of 
Agriculture and Cooperatives. The loan had been spent on his farm, 
Paitoon said.
 
Now that the new year has arrived, the UN embargo has taken 
effect, and the border is closed down, the thousands of Thais who 
are left unemployed and heavily indebted are left to ponder their 
future. Many of them will certainly find their way to Bangkok, 
hoping to find a brighter spot in their otherwise bleak and lonely 
lives.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai