The Triangle Widens

CAMBODIA'S reputation as "Asia's new narco-state", highlighted in a cover article last November of the Far Eastern Economic Review and in US President Bill Clinton's recent singling out of the country as having a "severe" problem with heroin trafficking, seems well founded, though details and firm statistics are few and far between.

"It's amazing how little statistical information there is," says a western diplomat based in Cambodia. "The largest amount of money that comes into and goes out of Cambodia is narco-related," asserts another. "That's a fact."

The national police deputy chief, Noun Soeur, after a politically-motivated dismissal last August, claimed that 600 kg of heroin was shipped through Phnom Penh each week. And also in August last year, Cambodian customs officials seized 71 kg of heroin hidden in a speedboat in the coastal province of Koh Kong.

Since Thai and US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials began cracking down on trafficking in Thailand, a pattern has emerged. Drugs formerly shipped from the Golden Triangle—the drug production region where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet—now travel the length of Laos into Cambodia. How it leaves Cambodia is still a subject of speculation, though few doubt that a range of avenues exist in a country that is well known for an ill-equipped and highly corrupt law enforcement machinery.

Informed analysts believe heroin is smuggled from Cambodia's Ratanakiri province and elsewhere by truck in specially marked logs. One foreign firm is rumoured to have paid a kickback of $150 million for the security of its personnel and products—ostensibly logs—being shipped from an outlying province to Phnom Penh. "I wouldn't be surprised if companies in logging are also involved in drug trafficking," says opposition member Sam Rainsy. "They are protected by the same soldiers."

바카라 웹사이트Some cite a high volume of more or less legitimate trade across the southwestern border in and out of Thailand. Still others note the acute inadequacy of trained customs and police personnel and the lack of equipment, to intercept drug consign ments leaving by commercial or other flights from Phnom Penh's Pochentong airport. "No one knows what the Cambodian air force does," says one observer.

In short, anything is possible where enforcement is lax. "My policemen lack equipment and experience, and the smugglers are rich and have high-ranking officials behind them," complained Soeur in August, when he resigned. He knew the names of key officials involved in the drug trade, Soeur told the Phnom Penh Post, but he also said: "I can't tell you that or I will die."바카라 웹사이트

While Cambodia may be Asia's latest 'narco-state', it is not the only one. All factors that make Cambodia a likely smuggling hub can be found in every other South-east Asian country: involvement of the armed forces, porous borders, corrupt law-enforcement officers. Cambodia's newfound prominence is due to its geography: it is in the right place at the right time to exploit new transit routes. "Cambodia is the land of smuggling. It is a paradise because it is a lawless country," says Rainsy. "The military is very powerful. It can do what it wants."

바카라 웹사이트The DEA has trained Cambodian police in anti-drug tactics but is tight-lipped about its achievements. "The DEA's efficacy really depends on the cooperation it gets from local sources," says another diplomat.

In addition to drug transit, Cambodia is also a convenient place to launder money. A plethora of small banks has mushroomed here. And Phnom Penh's unregulated casinos have had a reputation as money-laundering centres, providing a perfect cover for an individual's sudden acquisition of large sums of cash.

Also, Prime Minister Hun Sen, widely known for his anti-West views, called the US' singling of Cambodia as a drug trafficking haven "unfair and unjust" and placed the blame squarely where he feels it is due. "I don't believe there would be any country producing or distributing drugs if Americans and the Europeans themselves did not use drugs," he declared. The US may be unfair in blaming Cambodia alone, but fact is it has become a major heroin transit point.