Asian nations risk becoming new narcotics outposts: UN<\/p>\n
YANGON (AFP): More Asian nations must join in the region's
\nfight against the burgeoning narcotics trade or risk becoming new
\noutposts for traffickers, United Nations officials said on
\nThursday.<\/p>\n
Senior officials from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand
\nand Vietnam are holding talks here this week aimed at improving
\ncross-border cooperation on drug control strategies.<\/p>\n
The United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) said the six
\nnations represented East and Southeast Asia's major trafficking
\nand production centers, responsible for more than 75 percent of
\nthe world's amphetamine seizures last year.<\/p>\n
But the agency's law enforcement advisor Yngve Danling said
\nneighboring countries were fast becoming new outposts of the
\nnarcotics industry.<\/p>\n
Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines were being targeted
\nunder a new plan to stamp out the illicit business, he said.
\n\"We have to strengthen the capacity of vulnerable neighboring
\ncountries to prevent domestic and regional trafficking.\"<\/p>\n
Danling said the UNDCP would focus on improving the skills of
\nkey anti-drug personnel and try to educate the general public in
\nthose countries, which he said were also producers of chemicals
\nused to manufacture illicit drugs.<\/p>\n
\"We've also learned recently that there is great interest for
\nother ASEAN countries (to cooperate)... Singapore and Brunei have
\nexpressed their interest,\" Danling said.<\/p>\n
The senior officials are holding three days of preparatory
\ndiscussions here ahead of a meeting Friday of their home
\nministers who will approve new drug-control strategies.<\/p>\n
The six nations are all signatories to a 1993 pact which bound
\nthem to work together in the war on drugs by reducing demand,
\nboosting law enforcement and encouraging crop substitution.<\/p>\n
Their ministers meet every two years to evaluate the progress
\nof cross-border anti-narcotics projects and approve new
\ninitiatives devised by the UNDCP.<\/p>\n
UNDCP officials will unveil two new projects in Yangon this
\nweek. The first hinges on cross-border law enforcement
\ncooperation and improving nations' capabilities to act against
\ntraffickers.<\/p>\n
The second is a broad-ranging public awareness campaign, said
\nUNDCP regional representative Sandro Calvani.<\/p>\n
Calvani said the awareness drive would publicize the gritty
\ndetails of regional drug trafficking while examining the drug
\nproblem without being quick to pass judgment.<\/p>\n
\"We want to try to have a better awareness program, to get
\naway from the simplistic approach that drugs are bad and people
\nshould be punished, or in some places that people should be
\nhanged,\" Calvani told AFP.<\/p>\n
\"We want to show the complexity of the problem.\"<\/p>\n
At the opening of the meeting Wednesday, Calvani said the
\nscourge of narcotics trafficking had spread from country to
\ncountry and that a coordinated response was necessary.<\/p>\n
\"You squeeze the balloon somewhere, it will reappear somewhere
\nelse. I am confident that if we squeeze the balloon in all six
\ncountries, it will soon deflate and the criminals' illicit
\nbusiness will collapse,\" he said.<\/p>\n
He added that today's drug traffickers were \"inventive, fast,
\ninnovative, daring and have very clear ideas and objectives\" and
\nthat anti-drug agencies could not continue using traditional
\nmethods of fighting them.<\/p>\n
Following the meeting on Saturday the Myanmar hosts -- who
\nhave been roundly criticized for turning a blind eye to drug
\nmanufacturing within their borders -- will incinerate a stockpile
\nof drugs in a ceremonial burning.<\/p>",
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