(VN} Troops, rangers unite in fight against violent illegal loggers

November 8, 2000

by HUW WATKIN in Hanoi

Troops and armed police have joined forest rangers to combat escalating

violence over illegal logging and the trade in wild animals.

The new strategy comes amid a string of gunfights and other incidents

between forest protection officers and illegal loggers, the latest of which

reportedly saw two people killed.

According to a report in the Thanh Nien newspaper, an explosion last week

killed Hoang Dinh Ky, police chief of Ky Hoa district, in northern Ha Tinh

province, and his five-year-old daughter.

" Police believe the bombing was an act of revenge for a recent crackdown on

illegal logging activity, " the report said.

Such acts were until recently virtually unheard of in Vietnam, where police

and security forces are closely integrated with the community.

In the five years to the beginning of this year, 12 forest rangers had been

killed and 490 injured in clashes with illegal loggers and wildlife

smugglers. But the past eight months has seen at least four deaths in 17

armed assaults against forest protection officers.

In one incident in southern Dac Lac province earlier this year, armed men

destroyed forestry department vehicles and held three officials at gunpoint

until they released a group of illegal loggers who had been arrested.

Rangers are being trained in self-defence, but forest protection officials

say they need increased powers to deal with offenders who are reportedly

often protected by powerful district and provincial officials.

Legislation stipulates that rangers are only allowed to use weapons in

self-defence, but the violence has frayed tempers.

Late last month officers from the forest protection unit in northern Thanh

Hoa opened fire on a bus carrying 46 people after the driver refused to stop

at a checkpoint set up to search for smuggled wildlife. No one was injured

in the incident.

Environmental groups say Vietnam has become a major player in the

international wildlife trade and that up to one million cubic metres of

timber is illegally extracted from protected areas each year.

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