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Keynote Address at the Closing of the Stocktaking Conference of the 2009
Anti-Drug Achievement and Direction Setting for 2010
Phnom Penh, March 17th, 2010
Excellencies,
ladies and gentlemen!
It is my
pleasure today to be here once again with Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen in
the closing of the stocktaking conference of the 2009 anti-drug achievement and
direction setting for 2010 which is hosted by the National Authority for
Combating Drugs (NACD). Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal
Government and myself, I would like to commend the national police force,
military police force, related ministries/institutions, all levels of
sub-national authorities, development partners, civil organizations, and the
private sector for their firm commitment and sacrifice that result in many
significant achievements in 2009.
Along with this,
I would also like to commend His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan,
Head of NACD, and Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen the management and
officials of NACD for working tirelessly to crack down drug trafficking in
Cambodia. We take great pride in the achievements of NACD, in particular, in
terms of policy implementation and international cooperation in the effort of
sub-regional, regional and global integration. These activities represent the
right direction of the nation’s top anti-drug institution, attested by the
introduction of strategies to: 1. Reduce demand, 2. Reduce supply, 3. Provide
health and rehabilitation services, and promote integration, 4. Strengthen law
enforcement, 5. And strengthen international cooperation. Apart from being an
appropriate and comprehensive response, these strategies also address multi-sectoral
issues and require contribution from the whole society, both at national and
sub-national levels, to ensure effectiveness and efficiency.
To reflect the
spirit of the above strategy, I would like take note of some achievements as
follows:
1. Reducing
the demand for drugs: following my appeal at the
appointment of the head of NACD on 19th May 2009 and at the
International Anti-Drug Day on 26th June 2009, I noticed tighter and
better cooperation amongst related ministries/institutions such as the Ministry
of Information, the Ministry of Education Youth and Sport, the Ministry of
Culture and Fine Arts, the Ministry of Cult and Religion, and the Committee for
National and International Festivals and so forth. Along with this, we also
notice better participation from the private sector, both in terms of resources
and advertisement means, especially radio and TV stations. These reflect
valuable contribution to disseminating the danger of drugs and reducing demand.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank and commend related ministries,
development partners, private entities, and actors and actresses for playing
their parts. However, some member ministries/institutions have failed to fully
participate in the effort to reduce the demand of drugs. Also, some
municipal/provincial anti-drug committees have not fully engaged the private
sector and partners within their responsible zones to reduce the demand of
drugs.
2. Combating
the supply of narcotic drugs. So far we observed that
national competence force including the national police, military police and
relevant institutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery,
especially the Forestry Administration and the Ministry of Environment who had
taken measures to actively enforce law and made a number of successful cases
related to failing many attempts to take Cambodia as the manufacturing site and
trading place. At the same time, the Ministry of Environment and the Forestry
Administration had also effectively cracked down the trafficking and trading of
sassafras oil that is used as raw material for manufacturing of narcotic drugs.
According to the finding, we can noted that trade behavior of the criminals has
become more fierce, and some of them even dared to fight back with law
enforcement officers and some of our officers were killed on duty. Taking this
opportunity, I would like to highly value the exemplary courage of all forces
and to express my regrets and pay condolences to the deceased’s families.
Moreover, our crackdowns so far had been made against only big cases such as the
manufacturing, trafficking and trading of narcotics; while cases of small-scale
distribution at locality has still been overlooked and has not been actively and
strictly combated in conciliated manner. These cases have provided youths who
are not aware of the danger and the adverse impact of drugs with the chance to
experiment drugs and cause anarchy, destroy public order and affect local
security, and therefore our human resource will be destroyed from one generation
to another.
3. Treatment, rehabilitation from drug and integration. So far we had paid
great attention to and thought of ways to save drug-victims by establishing
temporary centers for dilution, treatment and education in
municipality-provinces including those at municipal-provincial committees for
drug control, military police unit, police unit as well as at civil society
organizations. At the same time, to encourage and support them to undertake
dilution and treatment service, and reeducate them to be a better youth, we
observed that there are great care full of compassions provided by venerable
monks, Her Excellency Doctor Bun Rany Hun Sen, president of
Cambodian Red Cross and other leaders, the kind-hearted people aiming at enable
them to recover fast and reunion with their family in order to continue
education and resume their professions. Nevertheless, all of our drug
rehabilitation centers still not yet have any role model strategy for providing
dilution and treatment services to drug victims in accordance with appropriate
medical standard.
This problem has
made some victims hesitate to receive treatment and caused some irresponsible
and conscienceless human rights organizations, to take the opportunity to avoid
finding solution to the problem and also attack our humanitarian efforts and
spirit. Taking this opportunity, I would like to recommend the National
Authority for Combating Drug, all related ministries and institutions, local
authorities and relevant competent authorities in all levels to pay attention
and closely cooperate in order to implement the above programs more effectively
to achieve the success for our society.
The Royal
Government of the 4th Legislature of the National Assembly has
considered that the production, plantation, drugs trafficking are the 13th challenge among the 17 challenges in implementing its Rectangular Strategy-Phase
II due to the fact that this drug issue has become the social problem affecting
the Cambodian youth at the present time and in the future. In this spirit, in
order to deal with the challenges as well as fully and effectively promoting the
implementation of the national strategic plan of the NACD, I would like to
suggest and put out a number of recommendations as follows:
1. Drug Reduction
Affairs
This work is truly
significant and it is therefore required to make sure that all people are
well aware of danger and negative impact of the drugs in order that they can
avoid the drugs because they all do not need drugs. The need of drugs is
not unavoidable if we can do whatever to make all individuals know clearly
about the danger of drugs. For this kind of work, I would like all related
ministries, institutions, units of the state and of the private sector of
physical and legal persons, to have less or more obligations to participate
in the dissemination in order to make the people in public aware of the drug
danger as below:
- All related
institutions, national and international civil societies, and private sector
must continue to support and cooperate closely and actively in implementing my
recommendations raised during the transfer ceremony of Chairman of the National
Authority for Combating Drugs on 19 May 2009 and during the International Day
against Drugs on 26 June 2009.
- The
ministries/institutions that have not participated in the activity must try
their best in disseminating the education information about danger of drugs as
much as possible. For example, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of
Industry, Mines and Energy can request the company to publish the education
documents about danger of drugs on their products such on the drinking water
bottles, gooks package and other facilities. At the same time, the Ministry of
Tourism and the Ministry of Publics works and Transport are able to request the
travel agencies and tourist transport owners to inform the passengers in the
long distance travelling buses through action like sticking the drugs message on
the buses or play the drugs education spots through video...etc. Other
Ministries and institutions also have to tack action at the same time in order
to make sure that all people under their competency understand better about
danger of drugs. In this connection, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts must
continue to require all productions to put the commercial spots about drugs
education in all tapes before approving the license for operation.
- The
Municipal/Provincial Committee for Drugs Control must control and use their
utmost ability to encourage the extensive education all over their towns and
provinces. In the meantime, they must promote the commune councils to
participate in the drugs education in their locality and community constantly at
least once a month for each village.
- The
Municipal/Provincial Committee for Drugs Control must prepare to create village,
communes, schools and model units (e.g. Techo Development Village is a No Drugs
Village). At the same time, we must select the eldest who is more influential
in the village to help educate and disseminate the information about the danger
of drugs to the children in his/her village.
- All sponsors and
parents must control and investigate the academic program of their children
regularly by checking the student investigation books and closely cooperate with
the teachers in charge.
- All media systems,
state-owned and private radios and TV stations as well as the various
journalisms should help disseminate and educate further as drizzling rain.
- All mobile phone
companies should reconsider about the possibility of texting the educational
messages about the danger of drugs to their customers during the traditional
festivals and other special days such as Khmer New Year, International New Year,
Weekend and other International Holidays (by just saying: Please tell your loved
ones about the danger of drugs or the drugs destroy your future, families and
society).
2. Drug Reduction
Affairs
I have always received the
information about small scale drugs trafficking acts for daily use that
happen almost constantly in the down town, district/khan of a number of
cities/provinces, yet these case have not been tremendously cracked down
yet. In this situation, although the case of selling and buying of drugs is
small scale, it truly caused the anarchy and insecurity in the locality and
affects the social order. This problem has made the people in the community
unhappy with the RGC and it is also one of the obstacles to implement the
Rectangular Strategy-Phase II of the RGC. Therefore, I would like to
recommend as follows:
- All levels of
competent authorities must suppress the drugs criminal acts intensively and more
actively in both small and large scale
- The Ministry of
Justice and the Court must punish the Drugs Criminals seriously and according to
the level of law without toleration
- All law enforcement
forces must cooperate with the National police force, Military Police Forces and
the Ministry of Justice and the Court in order to arrest the criminals and the
people behinds to go for trial and prosecution conforming to their criminal acts
by not having understanding and must not tolerate, in any means, the
intervention made by whoever.
- The Chairman of the
Municipal/Provincial Council and the Chairman of the Committee to Control the
Drugs in the municipalities and provinces, on behalf of the Unit Forces
Commander, must use forces to implement the law in all institution within their
competencies in order to crackdown and eliminate the plantation, production,
trafficking and use of drugs in their territories. They must do this kind of
work constantly like drizzling rain in their town, district/khan, commune/sangkat
and village.
- For the sake of
sustainability and efficiency, the chairman of the Committee to control the
Drugs in the municipalities and provinces must strengthen again the secretariat
and the permanent officials as soon as possible.
- The law enforcement
officials and all levels of local authorities must abide by the professional
ethics and the state law strictly. They must not get involved in any criminal
acts and must not tolerate or understand any individual who takes the
opportunity to use their roles to commit crimes or back up the other criminals,
but implement the law strictly.
3. Treatment, rehabilitation and integration of drug
addicts
For the
effectiveness and sustainability of destroying drugs, treatment and
rehabilitation of victims of drug usage, I would like to make
recommendations as follow:
- The National Anti-Drug Authority must establish
National Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation for Drug Addiction which I had
already approved during the Handover Ceremony of the New Chairman of the NACD as
soon as possible to reduce the number of centers we already have today. At the
same time, the NACD must also cooperate with other relevant ministries,
institutions to prepare related documents such as the National Policy on
Treatment and Rehabilitation, minimum requirements in treatment and
rehabilitation, medical treatment and rehabilitation for drug addicts.
- The Ministry of Health must have dilution,
treatment and consultancy services for drug addicts on voluntary basis at
general, specialized, provincial, district hospitals and health centers so that
the drug victims could access to services conveniently. At the same time, the
Ministry of Health must help to strengthen and provide any necessary health
services to the temporary Dilution, Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers we have
today, to improve health services and to ensure the effectiveness of dilution
and treatment at those centers by working closely with nearby health centers,
operational hospitals and referral hospitals.
- The NACD must try to establish Consultative Working
Group on Dilution, Treatment for Drug Addicts at target areas in communes –Sangkat
to reduce the number of interim centers we have today. In addition, I would like
to appeal to all parents, guardians of drug victims to take them for dilution
and treatment, to help them on time. Please do not let your children under
severe drug addictions.
I would also like to take this opportunity to appeal to all
development partners to continue support projects of the NACD, not only to
manage and control the drug uses in Cambodia, but to help in law implementation,
to reduce other risks, especially the HIV/AIDS transmission that caused by drug
usage.
My advice and recommendations mentioned above is to contribute to
direction and action plan of the NACD which you all discussed and agreed at this
important conference.
Once again, on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia and
myself, I strongly believe on the will and commitment of Excellencies, and
colleagues and all partners of the NACD to implement the advice and action
plan for 2010 successfully for the development, prosperity and happiness for our
people.
Being convinced and during the closing of this 2009 Stocktaking
Conference and Direction-Setting for 2010 of the NACD, May I wish Your
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen on the upcoming Khmer New Year Days with Four Gems of Buddhist Blessings.
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