PRESS RELEASE

Date: 19 August 2003

Time: 10h30

Venue: CSIR Conference Centre, Pretoria

LAUNCH OF UNODC’S RESPONSE TO THE REGIONAL CRIME AND DRUG PROBLEM

On Tuesday 19, August 2003, the Strategic Programme Framework (SPF) on Crime and Drugs in Southern Africa will be launched in Pretoria.  The SPF – which sets the backdrop for a sustained programme of technical assistance on crime and drugs for the medium term – was prepared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Regional Office for Southern Africa, following extensive consultations with regional governments, organizations and international donor partners. 

The Strategic Programme Framework both contains an assessment of the main crime and drugs threats in Southern Africa and provides an outline of key strategies which the governments of the region and their donor partners may adopt to counter these threats to civil society. 

The report notes a worsening crime and drug problem in Southern Africa generally, with specific areas of concern as follows:

GENERAL

• Key officials and informed observers throughout the region believe that criminal activities, coupled – in the case of organized crime – with drug trafficking, pose a heightened threat to effective governance and to improving the social fabric.

• The extent of the threat of crime and drugs varies from country to country and in several cases is a function of a broader context such as ongoing civil strife or political fragmentation.

• Official capacity for data collection and analysis of crime and drug patterns is generally poor and is very unevenly distributed.  In several countries, this capacity barely exists. 

• A general perception of police performance ranges from poor in Swaziland, Lesotho and Namibia, through mid-level satisfaction as in South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique, to two-thirds of  respondents reporting satisfaction with the overall police performance in Botswana.  Data suggest that prison populations suffer from gross overcrowding.

• In both drugs and crime, under-resourced and inexperienced officials in key agencies struggle to assimilate the international assistance that is available.  This problem is compounded by the often slow and incomplete implementation of the training and technical assistance programmes themselves.

• A consensus, in particular among law enforcement and criminal justice agencies of the region, appears to support the view that the drug issue is a subset of the larger crime and social disintegration problems, except to the extent that it is a health and welfare issue.

• If anti-crime capacities are generally weak, there is little hope that a narrow focus on fighting drug trafficking and substance abuse can forge ahead successfully without strengthening those broader crime prevention and enforcement mechanisms. Thus, what is needed is a broad strategy, which is based on sufficient and reliable data, that promotes prevention, enhances the rule of law, strengthens law enforcement and judicial integrity, and fosters treatment and rehabilitation, so that energies can be brought to bear on the most acute problem areas, drugs included. 

CRIME HIGHLIGHTS:

Serious and violent crime is a region-wide problem.  The incidence of such crime appears particularly acute in South Africa. 

Property-related crimes, as elsewhere in the region, appear to comprise the bulk of reported cases in those countries with data.  High rates of car theft and cross-border smuggling of vehicles, especially from South Africa, constitute a major police problem.

Crimes related to violence against women, especially but not only rape, constitute a disturbing phenomenon that appears to be endemic in the region.  All countries for which some figures are available from police or survey sources report high and, for the most part increasing, rates of such violence.

Organized crime appears to be on the increase in much, perhaps all, of the region, although it is a relatively new phenomenon.

Corruption, like organized crime, is an omnibus term referring to a host of activities.  It encompasses bribes to police, customs, judicial, and other state officials in exchange both for special favors and for services rendered which the bribed official was otherwise obligated to provide.  It is increasingly perceived as a serious problem in the region, although from an international perspective SADC as a region fares much better than Africa as a whole.  Business leaders are considered corrupt by more than half of those surveyed in the region.  The public sector is seen as disproportionately more vulnerable to corruption than the private sector and appears to be centered in law enforcement and the delivery of basic services.

The dual phenomena of trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants exist in the region.  Regional trafficking in persons comprises both the trafficking of women and children into the region from Asia and Eastern Europe and from the region to Europe, North America and Asia.  It also includes intra-regional trafficking and in-country trafficking, particularly of children.  Much of the intra-regional trafficking is southward to the wealthier southern tier of the region.

New patterns of organized crime, drug trafficking and terrorist financing have placed the issue of money laundering firmly on the agenda of a number of key SADC states.  These center on South Africa, with its relative wealth and sophisticated economy and financial sector. 

DRUG HIGHLIGHTS

Overall, the SADC region remains a net exporter of cannabis, and a net importer of other illicit substances including cocaine, heroin, MDMA (‘ecstasy’), methaqualone (‘mandrax’), hashish, amphetamines and LSD.  An unquantified amount of the drugs imported into the region is destined for transshipment elsewhere, mainly Europe.  One recent trend is the increasing local production of synthetic drugs like ecstasy and mandrax, especially the latter which is mainly intended for the South African market. 

The main psychoactive substances of abuse in all countries of the region are alcohol and cannabis.  However, since the early 1990s, it is clear that the entire spectrum of illicit drugs has begun to penetrate the region, with market conditions making South Africa the most attractive destination for long distance smuggling operations. 

Cultivation.  Cultivation of illicit substances in the SADC region is comprised overwhelmingly of cannabis, which has been grown in southern Africa for several hundred years.   In 2000, almost one fourth of the cannabis herb seized worldwide was seized in Africa, mainly in South Africa. 

Production and manufacturing.  Production and manufacturing of illicit substances, such as mandrax and ecstasy, exist in the region.  Most of this production occurs in South Africa whose advanced infrastructure and developed chemical industry make concealment of illicit activities much easier.  The main substance manufactured in South Africa – with some facilities also uncovered in recent years in Mozambique and Zambia – remains mandrax.

Likewise, the transshipment of precursor chemicals appears largely localized in South Africa and Mozambique.  Shipments of various precursor chemicals destined for the local manufacture of mandrax have been intercepted in various parts of the world in joint operations between the South African authorities and their foreign counterparts.  In addition, but to a significantly lesser degree, the exportation from South Africa of precursor chemicals for other drugs such as cocaine has been uncovered.

Trafficking.  Trafficking in illicit substances in the region has increased in volume and spawned new networks since the early 1990s.  The main cause of the change has been the opening up of South Africa.   First, the country's internal market, which possesses the purchasing power for effective demand, has become far more open to a range of illicit drugs.  Second, foreign nationals either have relocated to the country, or they have established networks independently or in cooperation with indigenous drug cartels, to add new transshipment routes linked to the lucrative European, North American and even Australasian markets.  After South Africa, Mozambique appears to have emerged clearly as the region’s second largest drug trafficking hub.

Licit diversion.  The diversion of drugs intended for the licit market into illicit channels has become an issue in South Africa lately, with traffickers seeking to make use of South Africa's chemical manufacturing capacity to divert licit industrial substances for exportation as well as for illicit consumption within the country.  Diversion of pharmaceuticals from legitimate medicinal usage into illicit markets has also occurred in Lesotho. 

Consumption and demand.   Alcohol abuse remains the region’s primary drug-related public health problem, contributing to the perpetration of violent crime and to dangerous sexual practices in an era of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  The primary illicit substance of abuse, cannabis, has maintained its market dominance among a wider population.  Increases in harder drugs, especially heroin, have been noted in Mozambique, Zambia and, most significantly, South Africa.  Because of the drugs-HIV/AIDS nexus, the authorities of the region face a much more intractable substance abuse problem than ever before. 

STRATEGIES TO COUNTER THESE TRENDS

The report goes into details about the types of strategies that can be used to counteract these trends.  They include:

• The development of, and assistance to, national crime prevention, criminal justice and anti-corruption strategies.
• Enhanced legislative and judicial capacities.
• Promotion of community-based prevention initiatives regarding crime and drugs.
• Targeted support to operational law enforcement.
• An assessment and strengthening of treatment and rehabilitation capacities, prison management and broader reintegration programmes.