Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:26:44 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      CAM: UN unable to enforce ban against Khmer Rouge

01/02

U.N. unable to enforce ban against Khmer Rouge

By SUE DOWNIE
   PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (UPI) -- The first United Nations ban against the Khmer
Rouge has not been fully implemented, a U.N. official said Saturday.
   "Checkpoints are not manned at this stage. However, we are discussing with
the Thai authorities methods for monitoring the ban in these areas," said U.N.
spokesman Lt. Col. Dick Palk.
   The ban, which prohibits the export of whole logs and limits the export of
sawn timber, was passed by Cambodia's four-party Supreme National Council in
September and came into force on New Year's Day.
   The Khmer Rouge have been refusing for the past six months to cooperate in
the U.N.'s peacekeeping operation in Cambodia, and will not allow the U.N. to
open checkpoints on the border between Thailand and the western part of
Cambodia controlled by the guerilla faction.
   The logging ban has been implemented in other parts of Cambodia, Palk said
Saturday.
   It affects not only the Khmer Rouge, but all four Cambodian factions. But
the focus has been on the Khmer Rouge because they are refusing to cooperate
with the U.N. peacekeeping operation.
   The government sends thousands of ton of logs through Vietnam, and the two
non-communist factions have been exporting timber from the northwest of
Cambodia to Thailand.
   From Jan. 1, the U.N. has been enforcing the logging ban along the border
with Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in areas controlled by the governemnt and the
non-communist factions, Palk said Saturday.
   But because of the non-cooperation of the Khmer Rouge and their refusal to
allow the U.N. into territory under their control, the U.N. has been unable to
man checkpoints in Khmer Rouge areas along the Thai border.
   Sources say it may be possible for the U.N. to get Thai cooperation in
stationing U.N. personnel on the Thai side of the border, or to get the Thais
to monitor the movement of logs without placing U.N. personnel on Thai soil.
   Because of ongoing negotiations with the Thais, the U.N. is delaying the
release of a controversial video that shows the massive damage caused by
logging operations.
   After seeing the video, which the U.N. made in October, some senior U.N.
officials described the environmental destruction in the northwest of the
country as "the rape of Cambodia".
   Menawhile, Khmer Rouge officials Saturday denied that their soldiers carried
out a mortar attack on U.N. personnel in the northwest province of Siem Reap on
New Year's eve.
   The U.N. evacuated 45 staff members after intense shelling which the U.N.
military commander, Lt. Gen. John Sanderson, said in a BBC interview was a
deliberate attempt by the Khmer Rouge to deter Cambodians from registering for
the forthcoming election.
   Khmer Rouge radio, monitored by Western organizations, said reports that
their soldiers shelled the U.N. team were "deliberately slanderous and
ill-intended propaganda."
   And another Khmer Rouge statement, released in Phonm Penh Saturday, accused
the U.N. of not being neutral.
   "The U.N. has been totally, bluntly and shamelessly siding with Vietnam and
its puppets," said the statement, referring to the Phnom Penh regime which was
installed by the Vietnamese in January 1979.
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