Laos needs aid to fight drugs

Bangkok Post
14.04.2006

The most recent victories in the fight against drugs and traffickers has been little reported, but now is the time Laos deserves praise and needs a lot of help. In the past eight years of concerted and coordinated effort, Lao authorities have ended pretty well all the major production of opium, heroin and big-time drug dealing. The achievements are recognised across the board and no longer in dispute even among sceptics. But success remains uncertain, because the poor farmers who are willing to turn away from growing poppies still need sustainable crops and markets. Otherwise, like a street addict without opportunity, they will return to growing opium. The Laos government began its serious battle against opium, heroin and the traffickers in 1998. The country was the world's third largest producer of illicit narcotics, behind Burma and Afghanistan, both of which were under regimes which encouraged or acquiesced in the drug trade. Laos in 1998 had 26,800 hectares (more than 167,000 rai) under poppy cultivation. In the cultivation season just ended, Lao farmers had poppies on 1,800 hectares (just over 11,000 rai) and much of that was seized before the drug traffickers could get the opium.

As Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Organisation for Drug Control, told a conference celebrating the achievement, the progress is momentous. Laos, he said, has achieved the virtual eradication of opium production. Vietnamese drug-fighter Police Maj-Gen Cao Ngoc Oanh correctly identified the second key achievement. He pointed to the knock-on effect: the disappearance of so many opium farms in Laos means Vietnamese will be unable to plant. He might have added Burma, Thailand and China to that statement. Fighting drugs is a cross-border battle. Without international cooperation, there is simply no victory in sight. The Vietnam News Agency quoted an official of the Laos government seeking help from neighbours to combat drug sales, transportation and smuggling. In general, that should be no problem.

Despite the presence of Chinese drug gangs in Burma, all other countries in the region are willing to step up their activities. Just for example, the US-financed International Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok holds regular six-week courses for Asean officials.

But it is time to help the farmers. Laos must quickly come up with better, more sustainable farming goals and activities. Think about Thailand: 25 years ago, this country embarked on its successful crop-substitution projects. It had guidance from His Majesty the King, support from the United Nations and aid from the US, Britain, Australia and other drug-importing countries. It was hard work, requiring the testing of new crops as well as roads to markets and even security for farmers against drug traffickers who were watching the source of their raw materials disappear.

Laos must get some of these types of programmes, which can be technical and expensive, at least by the standards of Laos. It is one thing for farmers to want to get away from the grinding poverty of being an opium grower and supplier to the trafficking gangs, but quite another to be able to move up the economic chain to better crops, more marketable goods, and a choice of markets. In Thailand, villagers with excellent products sometimes could not move them to waiting markets because of poor roads and lack of transport. The lessons and successful programmes learned here are almost perfectly transferable to the farmers of Laos. Lao farmers have been cultivating opium for 160 years. Most are as poor as the day they were born, because the fabulous profits of drug trafficking do not even trickle down to the opium farmers. For that reason, most farmers are willing to turn to alternative crops.

Without help, however, most simply cannot afford to. With help from the UN and from its allies and neighbours, Laos has reduced opium cultivation by 93% in seven crop years. It now is virtually drug-free. To stay that way, however, Laos needs economic assistance so its farmers can resist turning back to the bad old days.