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CAMBODIA URGED TO INK INTERNATIONAL TREATY ON HAZARDOUS WASTE

by PUY KEA, Kyodo

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, 19 January 1999 -- (Kyodo) International environmental organizations called on the Cambodian government Tuesday to immediately ban the import of hazardous waste and ratify an international convention on controlling the movement and disposal of such waste. The call by Greenpeace International, Basel Action Network (BAN) and other nongovernmental organizations follows revelations that industrial waste imported from Taiwan and dumped outside the coastal resort of Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia late last year contains high levels of mercury that has harmed the health of villagers in the area.

Although Cambodia and Taiwan are not parties of the Basel Convention, the message that such imports would not be tolerated would have been unmistakable and any illegal traffic would have been considered a criminal offense and a violation of international law," BAN representative Jim Puckett told a press conference in Phnom Penh.

The Basel Convention on the Control of the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which entered into force in 1992, now includes all coastal countries in Asia except Cambodia, Taiwan and North Korea. In March 1989, 118 nations signed the convention, 117 of which have ratified it to date.

The solid waste, weighing about 3,000 tons, was exported by petrochemical giant Formosa Plastics group and arrived in Cambodia on Nov. 30. It was dumped four days later on the outskirts of Sihanoukville, about 230 kilometers from Phnom Penh.

The owner of Muth Vuthy, the local company which imported the waste, has been arrested and around 30 government officials have been suspended from work, some of them on suspicion of taking bribes from the company to allow the waste into the country.

Formosa Plastics Group says it paid the importer 300,000 U.S. dollars, but denies allegations it spent 3 million dollars on bribing officials. While the company has admitted the waste contains traces of mercury, it said the waste had been certified by Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration as safe for landfill disposal.

"For Formosa to ship highly toxic waste to a country with no capacity to dispose of potentially life threatening contaminants is criminal," Michele Brandt, an attorney consultant to Legal Aid of Cambodia, a Cambodian nongovernmental organization, told the same press conference.

"Formosa must take responsibility and not only immediately repatriate the waste but compensate for all costs and harm resulting from this uncontrolled dumping episode," she added.

Forum on Cambodia, another NGO, reported at the press conference that at least two villagers have died from the effects of the waste and many other villagers have fallen ill.

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