Cablegate: Drugs in Cambodia: Donors Compare Notes On

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PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
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P 220818Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6902
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PHNOM PENH 001163

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MLS, INL/AAE--PETER PRAHAR AND YANTI KAPOYOS,
INL/C--GREG STANTON
BANGKOK FOR NAS--TERRY DARU AND DEA--SCOTT SEELEY-HACKER,
PAT CHAGNON, AND JOHN SWAIN
PACOM FOR JIATF-WEST--DAVID KILBOURN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SNAR PGOV CB
SUBJECT: DRUGS IN CAMBODIA: DONORS COMPARE NOTES ON
EXISTING PROBLEM AND ASSISTANCE EFFORTS

1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Donors highlighted Cambodia's porous
borders, rising rates of drug use, limited rehabilitation
facilities, and limited government capacity during a June 20
roundtable discussion about Cambodia's drug problem. Several
donor nations provide small-scale counternarcotics assistance
to Cambodia, including laboratory equipment, technical
advice, and training. Despite relatively modest USG
counternarcotics assistance, ours is the only broad-based
program of significant size. Frank comments by Deputy Prime
Minister Sar Kheng indicate that he realizes the limitations
of government officials charged with protecting Cambodia from
the drug trade. END SUMMARY.

2. (U) Japanese Ambassador Fumiaki Takahashi hosted a
mini-Dublin group meeting on June 20 to share observations
about Cambodia's drug situation, describe bilateral
assistance to Cambodia, and determine Cambodia's need for
external assistance. The Japanese embassy will use the
information provided as input for the report to the Dublin
Group meeting to take place July 12 in Brussels.

Drug Production Shifts, ATS Use Rises
-------------------------------------

3. (SBU) Giving a brief overview of regional and
country-wide drug trends, United Nations Office of Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) Representative Akira Fujino noted that opium
production in the Golden Triangle is decreasing, and
speculated that traffickers may begin importing Afghan
opiates into the region. Fujino and Australian Federal
Police Liaison Officer Kim Stewart commented that the
regional production of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) has
diversified--while it was once focused on Burma, law
enforcement has uncovered superlabs in Fiji, the Philippines,
and Malaysia over the past few years. Stewart observed that
Cambodia could be an attractive country for development of a
superlab due to law enforcement weaknesses.

4. (SBU) Looking specifically at Cambodia, Fujino noted that
there has been a rapid increase in ATS use among youth, the
unemployed, workers, sex workers, and street children.
Fujino claimed that most ATS in Cambodia is produced in Burma
and trafficked through Laos into Cambodia. Fujino also
reported a significant increase in the number of drug-related
law enforcement cases and seizures over the last two years.
Stewart commented that there has been a recent spate of
seizures of heroin being shipped from Cambodia to Australia
in fish products, but Cambodia-Australia postal seizures of
heroin have declined since last year.

5. (U) Fujino said that for the next three years, UNODC will
focus its efforts on developing community-based drug abuse
treatment services and providing technical assistance in
support of National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD)
reform and capacity building efforts.

US Outlines Cambodia's External Assistance Needs
--------------------------------------------- ---

6. (SBU) At the request of the Japanese Ambassador,
Poleconoff outlined the external assistance Cambodia needs to
adequately address its drug problem.

--Interdiction: Cambodia needs to increase patrols of
northern Cambodian roads and waterways, establish checkpoints
along the Mekong River and Highway 7, and bolster screening
efforts at Phnom Penh and Siem Reap international airports.
These efforts will require training for anti-drug police,
customs, immigration, gendarmerie, and military border
defense officers and border liaison officials and equipment
like boats and fuel, drug identification kits, and field
equipment (e.g. canteens, appropriate footwear, hammocks,
two-way radios, handcuffs, binoculars, etc.).

--Demand reduction: Additional drug rehabilitation
facilities should be established to help meet the large unmet
demand for such services and extend their reach outside of
the capital. Technical assistance and increased awareness of
international best practices is needed to improve existing
government-run rehabilitation facilities, which are
essentially military boot camps that provide no
rehabilitation services.

--Policy: Police officers and policy makers need English

PHNOM PENH 00001163 002 OF 003

language and computer training and technical assistance to
create an accurate database of drug arrest and seizure
information and to facilitate cooperation with neighboring
countries. Most importantly, the international community
needs better information about the extent of drugs-related
corruption within the Cambodian police and military and
should increase efforts to fight corruption within relevant
government agencies.

7. (SBU) There was broad consensus on these points, with
Fujino noting that the current anti-corruption bill was
defective. He pledged to raise the issue with the
government. He also said that Thailand has apparently agreed
to provide one boat to Cambodia for drug interdiction
purposes. The Australian ambassador commented that
availability of fuel is an important issue--it is a critical
but often missing component of counternarcotics and military
patrols, but it is difficult to control as it is so salable.

Donors Outline Bilateral Assistance Programs
--------------------------------------------

8. (SBU) Country representatives summarized their bilateral
counternarcotics assistance as follows:

Australia--Funds the 8-member Transnational Crime Team (TCT),
which looks at all types of Cambodian-Australian crime, much
of it drugs-related. Australia provides salaries, housing,
and training for the team members and sent the team to
Australia for a study visit. Over the past several years,
Australia has also paid for other police officers to attend
crime courses, which often include a narcotics component, in
Jakarta, Hanoi, and Australia. Australian authorities
conducted an assessment of Cambodia's borders and suggested
projects that could be undertaken to strengthen the borders.
The embassy hoped that the Cambodian government would
approach donors for funding for these projects, but the
government has not yet done this.

Canada--Sent a Cambodian police officer to a two week
training program in Canada. The Royal Mounted Police will be
training 25 police officers in a one-week drug investigation
course.

European Union--no projects

France--Will provide a gas chromatograph for the NACD
Laboratory. The French Police Attache noted that Cambodia is
not a priority for French law enforcement efforts.

Germany--Funds a Technical Advisor at the NACD. The advisor,
Martin Lutterjohann, was very involved in drafting the NACD's
five year drug control plan and is now helping develop the
authority's work plan. Lutterjohann has told the German
embassy that for the first time, the NACD and the National
AIDS Authority are actively cooperating, but that the
Ministry of Health is unwilling to view drug addiction as a
health issue.

Japan--Has given a gas chromatograph and other drug analysis
equipment. The chromatograph is now broken, but the GOJ
hopes to repair it. Japan has provided funding for drug
rehabilitation via UNODC's human security fund, but this
program has not been yet been implemented due to UNODC
staffing issues.

United Kingdom--Supports several projects on crime, including
training to police and gendarmes stationed at the border, but
no projects target drugs specifically.

Deputy PM: Law Enforcement Inexperienced, Unaccountable
--------------------------------------------- -----------

9. (SBU) Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior
Sar Kheng noted that while Cambodia does not produce drugs,
it is an important transit point for both ATS and heroin.
The government's five year plan on drug control emphasizes
demand reduction, supply reduction, and risk reduction. He
openly acknowledged the inexperience of Cambodian law
enforcement and expressed concern about rising rates of ATS
use. He highlighted a recent case where samples taken from a
50,000 tablet seizure tested positive for ATS in the field,
but when it was re-tested in Phnom Penh only 10,000 of the
50,000 tablets were ATS. This could be the result of police

PHNOM PENH 00001163 003 OF 003

corruption, he commented.

10. (SBU) Sar Kheng described a June 7 bust in which
tabletting equipment capable of turning out thousands of
tablets per day and six or seven sacks of precursor chemicals
were seized in Phnom Penh while additional tabletting
equipment was seized in Battambang province. Several
individuals were arrested.

11. (SBU) The Deputy Prime Minister also spoke at length
about the 1.4 tons of bullets that were erroneously shipped
to the US Embassy two weeks ago in place of the expected art
for the new USAID annex. This mistake highlights weaknesses
at Customs and in cargo processing, and demonstrates that
Cambodian government officials involved in border control
fail to take responsibility for their actions, he said. He
noted that there will be an inter-ministerial meeting later
this week to discuss this failure.

12. (SBU) COMMENT: Even the limited USG assistance
currently devoted to counternarcotics efforts in Cambodia far
exceeds that from nearly every other country. The only other
country with a significant program, Australia, provides
exceptional support to a very small team who work exclusively
on Cambodian-Australian transnational issues, rather than
supporting broad-based efforts to improve Cambodian law
enforcement as a whole. Sar Kheng's remarkably frank
assessment, and in particular his admission that corruption
may be at play and his criticism of lax government officials,
is a good sign that the Deputy Prime Minister realizes that
real progress on drug trafficking will require new attitudes
among Cambodian government officials charged with keeping the
country drug free.
MUSSOMELI

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