Lim Bunna, a controversial okhna who was once called out by the prime minister for smuggling wood to Vietnam, has been made an adviser to Hun Sen.
In 2016, Hun Sen ordered a crackdown against Bunna and another timber tycoon, saying authorities should use firearms and helicopters to end the smuggling activity, government spokesperson Phay Siphan told the Phnom Penh Post at the time.
“These two people feel like they are untouchable,” Siphan further told the Cambodia Daily, adding that the Interior Ministry had found evidence implicating them.
However, the prime minister backtracked just days later, saying the tycoons’ alleged logging of Ratanakiri’s protected Virachey National Park was “legal.”
Now, Bunna has been elevated to be an official adviser to Hun Sen, according to a ruling-party decision signed by the prime minister on August 18.
The decision was made by the CPP’s permanent committee and Bunna would advise Hun Sen in his role as the president of the party, the decision says.
Environmentalist Heng Sros said on Thursday that he had investigated Bunna’s timber trafficking and alleged the tycoon’s logging activities spanned the provinces of Kampong Thom, Kratie, Preah Vihear, Pursat and Stung Treng, as well as Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary.
“We see this as an encouragement for the ones who cut down and destroy the forests,” Sros said. “We have seen that law enforcement in Cambodia is loose, and this criminal has not been prosecuted and brought to justice.”
However, CPP spokesman Sok Eysan said such allegations were unfounded.
“Where is the evidence for them to claim like this and that,” Eysan said. “The promotions are the government’s right. What law and right do they have to not allow us to promote them? When there is a promotion, they have the right qualifications so they get promoted — the prime minister does not do it for a joke.”
Eysan added that the ruling party’s electoral success showed its judgment was sound.
The ruling-party dominated this year’s commune election — though it did so after its main rival, the CNRP, was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017. The court’s supreme justice is a senior ruling-party official.
“Okhna and dignitaries who receive promotions have not done like they say. They just say it,” Eysan said. “The situation is white but they say it is black, and cannot accept it. If the CPP and government have done wrong, the people would not vote to continue [our] role further. Do you understand?”
In another decision by the CPP dated August 18, senior military official Meas Bunley was also promoted to be an adviser to Hun Sen.
Bunley was previously embroiled in a land dispute with Chinese company Today Bokor Development, but this was settled with the mediation of prime ministerial assistant Duong Dara, according to local news outlet CEN.
However, that dispute has led to the arrest of Chinese national Wang Zhigan, 42, for alleged fraud and forgery, according to Troryorng Media.
Wang was an official adviser to Dara to help in communication and recruiting Chinese investors, according to a July 2021 Council of Ministers document.
