Editorial

President A.K. Dissanayake launched his Government’s newest campaign – an all-out war on narcotics, seeking the support of the entire nation to wipe out the menace of toxic drugs that has reportedly seeped into every nook and corner of the country.

According to Narcotics Police guesstimates, “hundreds of thousands” of Sri Lankans are “addicts”.

This new crusade comes hot on the heels of the Government’s ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ campaign and a counter Opposition drive that accuses the Government of complicity in the recent surge of narco substances entering the country. The Opposition alleges that the media blitz on arrests of high profile members of the local narco mafia is a mere cover-up of its own follies.

That the Government has taken so long – since January this year – to come clean on the details of those 320 containers that had been controversially released without a proper check by Customs does not help. Particularly when the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Authority) had tipped off Colombo that two containers contained narcotics material were among the consignment. A Minister in charge of the Port where the consignment went through was shifted, but the official explanation did not say if it had anything to do with taking ministerial responsibility for the lapse on the part of the authorities. If that was indeed the case at least the ruling party could have scored some points, but the reason given was merely to say it was part of administrative reshuffling of portfolios. The Government’s silence on the ghost consignments is otherwise not only deafening, it is baffling.

Contradictory statements on the discovery of ‘ICE factories’ in Nuwara Eliya and what are described as selective arrests of those in the business have compounded these allegations. When an Opposition local council chairman was murdered last month while in his office, the Government was quick to say the politician was in the narco trade. They blamed the Opposition for selecting such people as their candidates.

Hardly had they finished slamming the Opposition by an ironic reversal one of the ruling party’s local councillors and her entire family were arrested for dealing in narcotics. The canker had spread across the entire political spectrum. That politicians and drug dealers are bedfellows is nothing new, and the ruling party may not want to put their foot in their mouth again by trying to take political advantage of what they want from a national rally against narcotics.

The fact that the narcotics business has been on the rise is clearly evident. This has been a worldwide trend. The number of those convicted for narcotic related offences has risen to more than 65 percent in Sri Lankan jails. Tax payers have to pay for the upkeep of 35,000 of them and others in rehab centers. While international organisations like the WHO (World Health Organization) have concentrated on anti-cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse campaigns, narcotics, from the ancient cannabis now to cocaine, heroin and opioids have entered the marketplace. And worst still, for this Government, it betrays a duplicity in its latest campaign when it announced a policy of growing ganja (cannabis) for export.

The disclosures over the years of arrests at sea, airports and now within the country beg the question whether, given these volumes, they are merely for domestic consumption, or whether Sri Lanka is a convenient transit-point to destinations such as India and the Maldives because of the lax and corrupt border entry and exit points.

Boatloads of what is known as ‘Kerala ganja’ are smuggled into the country from India across the Palk Straits. These carriers come in the guise of fishermen. The Navy is accused by local politicians in the North of collusion with an occasional arrest only ‘for show’, but the smugglers know that they have the tacit protection of the Indian Government because of the pressure they have applied on Sri Lanka to permit their ‘fishermen’ into Sri Lankan waters.

The masterminds – the ‘kingpins’, or the ‘drug lords’ in this industry locally are believed to number not more than 20, but each of them maintains a network of up to 200 dealers throughout the country. Those dealers have the ‘pushers’ targeting the vulnerable, including schoolchildren.

Many believe however, Government campaigns to eradicate the narcotics threat are a load of hot air without the death penalty made operational. They argue that the current laws ranging from death sentences not executed to life sentences to rehabilitation hardly act as a deterrent to stop the next generation of drug lords taking over the business. They cite examples in Latin America where the cycle of tip-offs, raids, arrests, jail terms goes on – and on, simultaneously with turf wars and murders – and a flourishing industry.

Elsewhere, questions have also been raised about the production of confiscated narcotics in courthouses, and if there is a seepage from them for recycling into the streets while the Government Analyst’s reports from a short-staffed department take months to come up with the proof for a proper prosecution. There is the issue of confidentiality and safety of informants when the public is asked to pass on information to the Police. All over the world, governments have been hard-pressed to stem the lure of slush money passing from the drug lords to the law enforcement authorities to buy their silence and inaction.

The former President of the Philippines took a course outside the box. As Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte saw his city swamped by the drug cartels. He adopted a strategy of going after the drug dealers, big and small, mercilessly. Extra-judicial killings, called a ‘scorched-earth’ policy intensified when Duterte became President. A familiar playbook followed. Western human rights groups, backed by the Opposition cried for his blood. The fact that he wanted to boot out US military bases from the Philippines and take a non-aligned posture is hardly unrelated to him being later dragged before the International Criminal Court for ‘crimes against humanity’. He is now languishing in custody in The Hague.

President Dissanayake has not indicated adopting such an approach against the drug lords, nor are there signs of any anti-US foreign policy. The busybody human rights groups will, nevertheless, be watching. It is their reporting that is selectively quoted by the US or Western governments when they wish to bring countries like the Philippines and Sri Lanka to heel. The demand for the repeal of the death penalty in Sri Lanka is already an issue the European Union (EU) has raised in its negotiations with Sri Lanka when discussing trade policy.

In such circumstances, a hard drive risks human rights ‘bleeding hearts’ taking up the cudgels, while a soft approach of banners on police station walls, stickers on ‘tuk tuks’, and even arrests is unlikely to cause a major disruption to the narcotics supply and demand chain.

The narco ‘industrialists’ usually bide their time until the enthusiasm of these off-on government campaigns blows over, and then, it is back to business as usual. Some of these ‘underworld’ persons are ‘heroes’ to some, in a strange kind of way. In cricketing parlance these campaigns just launched are long drawn-out Test matches, not limited over one-dayers.

On Friday, the President addressed Parliament on the national Budget, allocating Rs. 1.5 billion for the Government’s ‘A Nation United’ drug control programmes. He also acknowledged this was not a battle one party can perform. He must stop his party from trying to make the campaign political. They have already been shot in the foot doing so.