China kills addicts, Myanmar burns drugs on anti-drugs day
China kills addicts, Myanmar burns drugs on anti-drugs day
Agence France-Presse, Hong Kong
China executed at least 50 drug criminals and Myanmar, the
world's largest opium producer, torched narcotics it said were
worth more than a billion dollars as Asia marked world anti-drugs
day on Wednesday.
In China 14 people were sentenced to death in Chengdu, capital
of southwest Sichuan province, on Tuesday, with nine of them
immediately taken to the execution grounds and shot, the China
News Service reported.
"In recent years in Chengdu drug crimes have been on the rise
and the drug situation is becoming serious as drug criminals are
linking up with criminals outside the province," the report said.
Nationwide at least 36 more people have been reported executed
in the past week to mark the United Nations International Day
against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri also adopted a
tough stance, calling for the death sentence for traffickers.
"For those who distribute drugs, life sentences and other
prison sentences are no longer sufficient," she said.
"No sentence is sufficient other than the death sentence."
In Myanmar the military junta burned drugs it said were worth
more than one billion dollars in its latest bid to convince
critics it is committed to eradicating the menace.
Senior General Than Shwe, the country's top ruler, and
international diplomats attended the burning ceremony in Yangon.
It destroyed 3,027 kilograms of opium, 240 kilograms of
heroin, 434 kilograms of marijuana, 34.9 million amphetamine
tables, four million ephedrine tablets and 2,865 kilograms of
powdered ephedrine.
"The Myanmar government is totally aware of the scarring
threat and is seriously undertaking and trying its utmost best to
combat these deplorable drugs as a national duty," anti-drugs
official Brigadier-General Zaw Win said in a speech before the
display.
According to the latest State Department anti-narcotics
report, Myanmar is the world's largest producer of illicit opium.
It is also the primary source of amphetamine-type stimulants in
Asia.
Critics claim the narcotics trade bankrolls the military
government, but Myanmar says it is doing its best to curb the
drugs trade and wants more international help in doing so.
In neighboring Thailand, Princess Ubolratana presided over the
burning of more than 10 tones of seized drugs.
"This event is to show the government's strong determination
to wipe out the drugs problem," health minister Sudarat
Keyuraphan reported to Princess Ubolratana.
Meanwhile war-torn Afghanistan was maintaining its status as
top supplier of heroin to Europe and producer of almost the
entire bulk of opiates consumed in central Asia, a top UN
narcotics official said.
"Afghanistan is the source of about 70 to 90 per cent of the
heroin found in European markets," said Bernard Frahi, the head
of the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP), on the eve of
the anti-drugs day.
Newly-elected President Hamid Karzai has vowed to eradicate
poppy cultivation from Afghanistan.
In Cambodia several hundred people marched through the capital
Phnom Penh to appeal for an end to growing drug use.
Cambodia's past reputation as one of the few Southeast Asian
countries without a drug problem was fast disappearing, he said.