Cambodia: shrinking forests breed violence
Hang Serei Oudom told his 7-month pregnant wife that he was going out to meet a source. A journalist for Vorakchun Khmer Daily, he was investigating illegal logging for luxury woods in the jungles of Cambodia’s northeastern Ratanakkiri province. Three days later, on Sept. 11, he was found in the trunk of his car, which had been abandoned in a remote cashew nut plantation. “According to the autopsy report, his head was beaten in with a sharp tool, like an axe or a machete,” said investigating judge Luch Lao. “We are investigating the case.” They needn’t look much further than Oudom’s last article, activists contend. On Sept. 7, he had published a piece accusing local military police captain Ing Sieng Lay of smuggling timber in military vehicles. …
