BP: Editorial: The fight for

[suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

June 8, 1998


                                     



                                Editorial


              The fight for a
              drug-free zone

              At least 150 nations, including 30 of their presidents and prime
              ministers, will speak at a three-day, special session of the United
              Nations General Assembly. Special night sessions have been
              added just to accommodate the speakers. The topic is drugs,
              and the organiser is the eight-year-old UN International Drug
              Control Programme. The outcome will be a call for reduced drug
              demand and supply by 2000. 

              It is difficult to avoid cynicism over the anti-drug programmes.
              Statistics and the view from the street both indicate the same
              dreary pessimism. There are 190 million people using illicit drugs
              worldwide. The criminal syndicates are mushrooming, laundering
              billions of dollars through governments like Burma or banks using
              the latest Internet technology to keep ahead of the law. Nations
              remain left behind by the new, international criminal working
              across borders. 

              This depressing view has convinced several prominent old men
              and women to call on the special UN meeting to stop the war on
              drugs. The former UN secretary-general, the former Dutch
              premier, the former presidents of Colombia and Bolivia - these
              are a few who have signed a protest letter to the UN conference.
              They want a change in policy. The current course, they claim, is
              not cost-effective. 

              This is all very well, but however sincere these former leaders
              may be now, they are misguided. Let us remember, first, that
              they are speaking about our children and our country. Demands
              to liberalise or even to abolish drug laws may make sense to
              some. They probably would not have a daughter hooked on
              heroin. They probably do not live in a neighbourhood where the
              local drug dealer is terrorising their son for not paying for his
              latest amphetamine bill. 

              The UN has been most helpful in fighting the war on drugs. It
              had both aid and advice for Thailand when we began our
              crop-substitution programme almost 30 years ago. Thailand
              once was ridiculed around the world for our corrupt authorities
              who helped peddle narcotics. Now, we are often cited as a
              success story. Our farmers grow potatoes for McDonald?s and
              flowers for Mother?s Day - not opium for traffickers. 

              But the UN has grown less dynamic in recent years. Its drug
              programmes, like many other UN projects, have been hurt
              chiefly by stifling bureaucracy and lack of funds. In a way, the
              whole United Nations is on a sort of trial at the conference which
              begins this evening. It has to be tough and realistic, and the
              conference documents probably will achieve that. But the UN
              must also prove it has an important place in combatting illegal
              drugs trafficking. 

              The sponsoring UNDCP has been showing signs of life that are
              highly unusual in the United Nations. Undersecretary-General
              Pino Arlacchi, the agency?s executive director, has been both
              articulate and active. In the past six months, he has formulated a
              plan to eliminate illicit drug crops in 10 years. He cites Thailand
              and Pakistan as the proof that crop substitution and other plans
              can succeed. 

              Our prime minister, Chuan Leekpai, is staying home to look after
              the economy. But Thailand will be well represented by Bhichai
              Rattakul, the deputy premier and former foreign minister. He is
              expected to launch a call for a drug-free zone in Southeast Asia.
              That means Asean must agree to step up its efforts - and that, in
              turn, means that Burma and Cambodia will have to be
              convinced, or shamed, into halting cooperation with drug barons.

              The Thai call, for all the difficulties it faces, is certainly realistic
              and principled. Making the country, and the region, free of drugs
              will be no easy task. But setting the goal is a good idea. Two
              decades ago, it would have been ridiculous to talk of a drug-free
              zone. Today, it is a goal that, with hard work, we can meet. 




                                     




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Last Modified: Mon, Jun 8, 1998