Activists urge war on drug trafficking in Aceh

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

North Sumatra Police must go all out to stop drug trafficking from the war-torn province of Aceh following last week's arrest of three Acehnese women here with 1.5 tons of marijuana, antidrug campaigners say.

Secretary-general of the Indonesian Anti-Narcotics Movement (GAN) Zulkarnaen Lubis said the flow of drugs from Aceh had reached an alarming level.

He said the cases of drugs trafficking from Aceh, uncovered by police in North Sumatra, rose by over 100 percent, from 1,096 cases in 2001 to 2,264 last year.

"North Sumatra, being a neighbor of Aceh, is very vulnerable to drug trafficking," Zulkarnaen said last Friday.

Marijuana grows in Aceh and drug dealers have taken advantage of the 26-year separatist fighting there to turn Aceh into a drug production base for neighboring regions, including Java and even part of the country's eastern region.

Security forces and separatist rebels have allegedly received kickbacks from the illegal business, making it difficult to put an end to it.

Around 1.5 tons of marijuana went missing from a police station in the North Sumatra town of Binjai last year, after soldiers stormed it during a shoot-out with police. The clash killed two civilians, five police officers and one soldier.

Last Wednesday, police in North Sumatra caught three Acehnese women with 1.5 tons of marijuana, a crime Zulkarnaen said deserved the death sentence.

"If they are found guilty of possessing the marijuana, then based on Narcotics Law No. 22/1997, the three suspects could face the death penalty," he said.

"To deter others, the police and legal authorities must have the courage to sentence criminals to death," Zulkarnaen added.

Langkat Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Arman Depari in North Sumatra agreed that the three women should receive capital punishment if they were proven to be drug dealers.

There were two cases in which defendants were given the death sentence in North Sumatra last year, but neither has been executed so far.

According to Zulkarnaen, the delay sent wrong signals to drug dealers as they would think the court was not serious. "It's no wonder drug dealers never learn from their mistakes, the death penalty is in fact only on paper," he said.

Another bad example was the court verdict against Asiong who was convicted of carrying 50 kilograms of crystal amphetamine locally known as shabu-shabu. His sentence of four years and four months was reduced to 13 months by a court official who falsified a court document.

Arman further said the police were still investigating the possibility of a third party using the three women to bring the marijuana from Aceh to North Sumatra.

"For now, we are assuming that the three suspects were not acting on their own. There could just be couriers. We are hunting down the main player in the case," Arman said.

He admitted that Langkat is prone to drug trafficking from Aceh, and said that the local police were determined to uproot the network of drug dealers there.