Drug Trade Finds A Way

   By Anucha Charoenpo

Amporn Romyen, a volunteer with the probation department of the Justice Ministry, says this bank of the Mekong River is among the places where boats unload metamphetamines from Laos.NONG KHAI, Thailand - For the most part, Ban Khok Suak in Tambon Phraphutthabaht in Sri Chiang Mai district is a typical farming village in the Thai north-east.

Most of its inhabitants grow cabbages, tomatoes and chili. But one thing sets it apart from the typical north-eastern farming village: it lies along the Mekong River. This is mostly a good thing since it allows villagers to fish and use the mighty river for transportation.

But it has also been the source of a long-term problem about illegal drugs, one that is coming back after a lull in recent years to haunt the close-knit village of around 1,000 residents. Villages situated on the Mekong, which forms a long stretch of the border between Thailand and Laos, are used by drug traffickers as both transit and storage points for their illicit products, particularly methamphetamines.

Thai drug authorities are keeping a close watch on Ban Khok Suak, and say they have learned that some of the village residents are involved in drug trafficking and dealing.

In late 2005, frequent arrests of Thai and Lao drug suspects were made in the vicinity of the village. Two Lao men, Boonpan, 37, and Wichai, 33, are facing charges of carrying 7,200 methamphetamine tablets across the border for sale in Thailand.

In Laos, the original price of each pill is 25 to 50 baht (62.5 U.S. cents to 1.25 dollars). Drug dealers in Thailand pay 80 to 100 baht per pill (2 to 2.5 dollars), which is then sold to consumers in Bangkok for 300 to 400 baht (7.5 to 10 dollars).

Boonpan and Wichai, arrested while disembarking at the village pier, admitted that they had each been paid 500 baht (12.5 dollars) to act as couriers for a Lao drug dealer, police say. Furthermore, they testified before a village committee and police investigators that they had made drug-running trips several times before. They also said that many Lao villagers have become drug couriers since they earn more money from this than from working as farm hands or doing other menial work.

Over the past few years, the strict suppression of drug traffickers and increasing surveillance along the northern Thai-Burmese border, a part of caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s continuing war against drugs, resulted in a marked decrease in drug production and in the number of traffickers willing to risk bringing their illegal cargo into Thailand.

But the lure of tremendous profits has prompted drug traffickers to resurface and find other ways to enter the Thai market.

The diversion of traditional drug smuggling routes in the north of Thailand to the border with Laos, which had already begun before Thaksin’s war on drugs began in 2003, has become even more common.

Thai drug agents say they have information that methamphetamine pills usually originate from Shan state in Burma. Then, traffickers make their way onwards from there to cross the Mekong River to Muang Mom in Ton Phung district of Bo Kaeo province in Laos, before they bring the goods further at a later time.

In 2005, Lao authorities seized a total of around two million methamphetamine pills en route from Muang Mom down to the capital, Vientiane.

The traffickers use intra-provincial roads in Bo Kaeo, Oudomxai, Luang Nam Tha, Luang Prabang, Vangvieng, and Vientiane provinces to transport the pills before they cross the Mekong, and then make a delivery to Thai dealers living in villages along the river in the north-east.
Many drug smugglers have been apprehended while attempting to cross the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai province in Thailand. The drugs are found hidden in shoes, car tyres and packages of consumer goods, and on a few occasions even swallowed or inserted into body cavities.

These regulations at Mekong piers on the Thai side are meant to curb smuggling of drugs by boats from Laos.But most of the drugs are apparently brought to the Thai side on the innumerable small boats that make regular crossings on the Mekong between the two countries. Ban Khok Suak is among the most popular destinations for the traffickers.

Said Amporn Romyen, 49, a volunteer with the Probation Department of the Justice Ministry and a former village chief of Khok Suak: “The (methamphetamine pills) are coming back to my village. Lao people use their fishing boats to send the pills to their Thai dealers and customers. They do such illicit trade around the clock.”

Amporn says he got his information from undercover police and drug agents who had asked him and other villagers to help keep a close watch on Lao boats coming in and mooring at a village pier. Most of the boats, he says, sail from Ban Huay Hom and Ban Mai, opposite Ban Khok Suak.

Curbing the Flow

Ban Khok Suak, located some 50 kilometres from Muang district in Nong Khai province, is one of around 100 registered piers on the Thai side of the Mekong where boats carrying goods and passengers from Laos often dock.

But to block the inflow of illicit drugs, the boats are no longer allowed to moor freely on the Thai side. This measure was jointly initiated and carried out by the Office of the Narcotics Control Board and the local Suranaree Task Force. These days, each village has its own committee and volunteers checking arriving boats. Passengers and goods disembarking at the piers along the Mekong river are carefully checked. Passengers have their names and addresses registered before being allowed onto Thai soil.

Since 2001-2002, Ban Khok Suak has been classified a ‘red zone’, meaning it is plagued by drugs, says Kham-uang Roikaew, the head of Tambon Phraphutthabaht of Sri Chiang Mai district who oversees Ban Khok Suak.

   Before the Thai government launched its anti-drug campaign, the situation in the village had deteriorated so much that hundreds of young people and schoolchildren became addicted to methamphetamines, and many residents were dependent on drug dealing to survive and to support their habits. The village was also being used as a major storage point for drugs.

   But by 2005, two years after the government’s all-out drug offensive, the situation in the village improved dramatically. Many villagers kicked the habit because they feared being captured or killed by Thai forces.
   Kamnan Kham-uang recalls that during the early days of the drug war, he had sent around 60 drug addicts from the village to undergo rehabilitation, while many activities and campaigns against drug abuse were widely promoted and carried out in temples and schools. “At that time I would have to say that the government’s campaign against drugs was very successful because it took decisive action against those people involved,” he said. “Many were killed and many were brought to justice.”
   But now, he is no longer so sure about the effectiveness of the campaign because, he says, the drug problem is making comeback in the areas under his jurisdiction.
   Apart from Ban Khok Suak, he is responsible for nine more villages situated on the Mekong – Ban Phrabaht, Ban Sapanputh, Ban Thaicharoen, Ban Huay Chang Puak, Ban Sai Ngarm, Ban Pu Kru, Ban Huay Nam Nok, Ban Lumporn and Ban Huay Hai.
  Kamnan Kham-uang says all had been used as drug storage points in the past, and as in Ban Khok Suak, authorities have initiated surveillance on all the villages amid reports that drug traffickers in Laos were preparing to step up the smuggling of methamphetamine pills into the north-east of Thailand.
   Kamnam Kham-uang is calling for the organisation of defence volunteers and villagers’ committees, and has recommended that security guards and local police set up checkpoints to inspect strangers and vehicles that might be used for trafficking, especially at night. Furthermore, he says, state agents must not be engaged in dealing drugs themselves or allow drug dealers to influence them.
Laos Says It’s Doing Its Part

   On the Lao side of the river, Linthong Phetsavan, head of the permanent secretariat of Lao National Commission for Drugs Control and Supervision (LCDC), says his government is very concerned about the spread of drugs, especially methamphetamines, in various parts of the country. “We can’t deny that there is a methamphetamine problem in our country at present, despite the fact that our country is not a producing country,” Linthong said, adding that drug traffickers have traditionally used Laos as a transit country.
   Already, he explains, the Lao government has empowered his office, led by its chairman Soubanh Srithirath, who is also a minister attached to the President’s Office, to conduct seminars in various provinces about the danger of drugs and help keep Lao children away from these substances.
   Suppression is difficult, notes Linthong, because Laos has a long and porous border that traverses mountains and jungles. Drug traffickers pass through Laos on their way to and from China, Vietnam, Burma and Thailand. Drug distribution is found in big cities.
   He says that the Lao government strictly implements the provisions of the amended Article 135 of the Criminal Code, which increases the maximum penalty from life imprisonment to the death sentence for those found guilty of producing, selling, buying or possessing drugs.
   Apart from getting cooperation from all government organisations and citizens inside the country, he says the Lao government, as a member of the United Nations, is also emphasising the importance of international cooperation – bilateral, regional and multilateral – to fight the scourge of drugs and trafficking. The aim is to make the region drug-free by 2015.

These articles were published in 'The Bangkok Post', Thailand.

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