Karen Not Poaching Elephants Or Bribing Thai Officials

[webfact]

Chief says Karen not poaching elephants or bribing officials

KAMPANART KHANTRAKUL,

OLARN LERTRATTANADAMRONGKUL

THE NATION

Phetchaburi

Officials insist villagers not hunting; body to be exhumed for evidence

The chief of Phetchaburi's Kaeng Krachan district denied yesterday there was any need for Karen people to bribe officials, after a senior official's comment that Karen poachers were trying to smuggle elephants to get money to pay for identity cards.

Sutthipong Tanboonyasiridech dismissed the bribery comment made by Damrong Pidech, chief of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, as untrue, and said any charges should clearly state which officials were involved.

Damrong made the comment after Tuesday's confiscation of a five-year-old elephant from a group of Karen poachers after they ran into forest rangers, leading to a gunfight that killed one Karen man and injured two others.

Boontham "Sor Thu" Chuchat, a former tambon Padeng Moo 6 village headman assistant and a leading Karen Christian in the area, insisted the Karen from his village didn't shoot wild elephants in Kui Buri National Park in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, as accused.

WRONGLY ACCUSED

He said another group went to shoot elephants but the Moo 6 residents were arrested at the scene although they didn't commit the crime.

He said that despite wild elephants sometimes eating farmers' crops, the villagers didn't get too upset and hurt them. The village had had no large-animal hunters for a long time.

Boontham said a recent police raid had found wildlife skins in three Karen homes, but the residents were farmers and the skins were of serows (mountain goats) that their ancestors had hunted and kept a long time ago.

Atthapol Jaeng-reung, Tambon Padeng Administrative Organisation president, said he didn't believe the Moo 6 residents would shoot elephants and confirmed the village had no hunters because the state officials and the residents last year had signed a memorandum of understanding not to hunt animals.

SEEKING BALLISTIC EVIDENCE

A source reported that forensic officials would exhume the shot Kaeng Krachan elephant carcass for ballistic evidence and more investigation today.

Phattalung MP Naris Khamnurak, chairman of the Parliament's Committee on |Land, Natural Resource and Environment, said a committee meeting yesterday with officials over the elephant killings urged police to speed up the investigation and take into consideration park officials' opinions.

Although the officials' accounts and police versions about what happened were in part contradictory, he said the investigation would succeed because of social pressure.

Naris said he would ask the Interior Ministry to amend regulations on elephant identification so that papers would be issued from the elephants' birth rather than at age eight - as recent smuggled elephants were under this age.

He would also ask the governor of Phetchaburi province to probe the reported growth of Karen population near the park and to be stricter on the issuing of ID cards.

-- The Nation 2012-01-20

[rkidlad]

Oh! The irony.

[OzMick]

Not worth the paper it's not printed on. More excreta than a herd of elephants.

[Dap]

The Karen people are known to be the "caretakers of the forest". From my knowledge of these wonderful people I highly doubt the charges leveled against them.

[lonewolf99]

I suspect the Elephants are very much like Farrangs - they tend to commit suicide more often than get murdered. ?

And as far as the local tribes being the "keepers of the jungle" I beg to differ.

2 years ago I went on a guided trip through the hills of Northern Thailand hoping to see some wildlife and saw.......nothing.

When I quized our quide, about the lack of any ting other than a few small birds, she sheeepishly admited that the locals (including the Karen) had eaten the lot about 40 years ago. Things then got so bad for the locals, as there was nothing left to hunt, the government stepped in and started farming projects. i.e flowers and fruit not native to Thailand i.e. Oranges, which they could sell and buy "normal" food. The other thing they were encouraged to do were handycrafts for the burgeoning tourist industry, so the whole world can have a wooden Elephant on their mantle piece......just to remind themselves of what a real one once might have looked like....a bit like concrete giraffes and zebras.....

[cowslip]

just another attempt to marginalise people who are the responsibility of the Thai authorities...

[HaleySabai]

This case of the Karen families (300) that live peacefully in the park Vs.the aggressive park rangers has been ongoing for many years now. They have been trying to drive these people off park land by many different ways, the most recent was the slash and burning of the villages and stealing of the rice crops. We never hear about this stuff happening because it is in remote areas where the victims have little contact with outside media sources.

The area where these Karen live is in an exceptionally beautiful valley,it is here that someone(? ) wants to build another massive resort and needs these people to vacate the property. The rangers have been doing everything they can to discredit and build-up a case against the Karen for the public eye. One time they even took pictures of a tapioca crop from a distance and used it as evidence that they were growing ganga.

This kind of bullying has been going on in many other parks in the country.

The Karen have started to stand up in protest of these atrocities and now the other side are playing with guns and bullets determined to push through their greed-crazed agenda.

There have been great support from the Karen community in Chiang Mai province through donations of food and clothing and even a public organized benefit concert a few weekends ago.

Its easy to blame a people who have no voice to defend themselves. It may be a losing battle for the Karen people since they live in a world where only wrong can succeed and the

"caretakers of the forest"

weld great power from their Teak Wood homes

[canopy]

Can you handle the truth? I can't speak for the Karen, but to be perfectly honest I have noticed the hill tribes in the area I have lived for years are the most environmentally destructive people imaginable, even more so than the Thai people. They farm by poisons, burning, and chemicals and repeat this cycle of destruction over and over. While Thai's themselves do the same thing, the hill tribes go on to clear pristine forests to farm areas that are clearly inside national forest boundaries with no legal right to do so. They also go there to hunt absolutely every square inch of land, killing every type of protected species. Nothing is sacred. They cut down or burn down every tree around. Anything of value in the forests is considered fair game and looted down to the smallest fish, bird, bug and plant species. Garbage is thrown and dumped everywhere. Streams are totally cut off and diverted to irrigate fields, leaving not a single drop to escape killing off vibrant ecosystems. The land becomes dry wastelands of weeds among poisoned fields. Sorry to disappoint the illusion of precious beings living in harmony with nature making crafts because after living among them I know first hand the reality is quite different. This is not a flame, just an account that is relevant to the subject.

[yumidesign]

wow some interesting points of view and information here, pity its not in main stream media, maybe a case for this information being made available to media outside the country, how to do this?

[Flatouthruthefog]

wow some interesting points of view and information here, pity its not in main stream media, maybe a case for this information being made available to media outside the country, how to do this?

Don't worry.

They'll be reading.

As will the Thai powers-that-be and the environmentalists.

[HaleySabai]

I know first hand the reality is quite different.

.....Guess what, so do I .....Thailand is certainly not without active contradiction.