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Indonesia: UN And Thai Assists Indonesia In Cannabis Elimination
D. Arul Rajoo Bernama, Malaysian National News Agency
Wednesday 01 Mar 2006 BANGKOK, March 1 (Bernama) -- The Indonesian government has sought the assistance and expertise of United Nations agencies and the Thai government to introduce alternative development through crop substitution to eliminate cannabis cultivation in Aceh. Akira Fujino, representative of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime for East Asia and the Pacific, said Wednesday Indonesia wanted the alternative development to be part of the reconstruction process in Aceh which was devastated by the Dec 26 2004 tsunami. He said Thailand, which had successfully become an opium-free cultivation country through crop substitution, had agreed to offer its expertise and had even paid for nine Indonesian officials to attend a seminar in Chiang Rai recently and study the alternative projects there. "The Aceh officials were there with the governor of a province in Afghanistan to study Thailand's successfull implementation of alternative development. Last year, I was invited by the Indonesian government to advise them on this matter," he said here. Fujino was speaking at the launch here of the International Narcotics Control Board annual report for 2005. The Thai Foreign Ministry has been working with the Mae Fah Luang Foundation to help Afghanistan with crop substitution since 2003. The Mae Fah Luang Foundation, founded by the late Princess Mother, Princess Srinagarindara, has played a key part in the Doi Tung Development Project in Chiang Rai to bring the opium trade in Thailand under control. Unlike opium cultivation in the golden triangle area where it is grown by poor farmers and also used as a medicine, Fujino said, cannabis cultivation in Aceh was not always linked to poor people but was also for commercial use by illegal drug traffickers. He said the eradication of cannabis cultivation in Aceh could not be carried out previously due to the sensitivity involved in the once-troubled province located in the northern tip of Sumatra but the tsunami changed all that. "The Indonesia government is able to undertake this project now following the peace accord with the separatist movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) last August. Now they want it to be part of tsunami reconstruction project," he added. He said the number of farmers or land involved in cannabis cultivation was not clear but it was believed that the province was one of the biggest suppliers. He, however, admitted that the process would not be easy because an integral approach involving the Indonesian government and various UN agencies was needed. On the INCB report, Fujino said opium cultivation in the region had declined considerably, especially in major producing countries like Laos and Myanmar but illicit manufacture of methamphetamine had been increasingly detected in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. He said that although Thailand was not a manufacturer of crystallized methamphetamine, commonly called "ice". traffickers from Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan were coming here to get their supply, believed to originate from Myanmar. The illicit manufacture of amphetamine-type stimulants continued to take place mainly in China and the border of China-Myanmar as well as in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the report said. The usage of ecstasy was also on the rise in the region while manufacturers were becoming multinationals, Fujino said, citing the arrest of French and Dutch chemists as well as Chinese middlemen during a crackdown on Indonesia's biggest illegal drug laboratory outside Jakarta last year. The INCB also noted that smuggling of drug through mail poses a major threat to law enforcement and called on the government to screen premises of international mail courier companies and limit the number of entry points for parcels. http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=183194
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