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Jane E. Becker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Address in Bankok, Thailand, November 6, 1995.

Southeast Asia Regional Strategy Against Heroin Threat

Thank you Ambassador Itoh for the kind introduction, and to all of you, a special thanks for coming to participate in this conference. We have an ambitious agenda and a stiff challenge: to develop by the end of the week a regional strategy against the Southeast Asian heroin threat. And we have to do that against the backdrop of significant budget, political, and other uncertainties. Nevertheless, we have good reasons to get started now and several good ideas to surface and flesh out.

This conference, like our overall focus on heroin, is long overdue. I will be the first to admit that cocaine trafficking steals the spotlight--and the budget--in Washington. It is big, it is photogenic, and it is at our doorstep. But let me also be among the first to predict that this is changing. From the White House down, more attention is being directed at the heroin problem. There are some obvious reasons as you probably well know:

First, heroin addiction at home is increasing. Price and purity statistics indicate more heroin availability and use on our streets. Rising heroin-related hospital admissions confirm it. Heroin on the street is nearly twice as pure as it was 5 years ago--10 times purer than 15 years ago--and nearly 60% of the amount seized comes from Southeast Asia.

Second, the problem is getting bigger internationally. Worldwide opium production has more than doubled in a decade; the increase is disproportionately larger in Southeast Asia. The CIA's latest estimates show that Southeast Asia's 1994/95 crop was one of the largest in years. Cultivation was up 5 %, and production, thanks to ideal weather, was up 20% to 2,545 metric tons--64% of worldwide production. More countries, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly involved in heroin production and trafficking.

But there are other reasons that have grabbed the Administration's attention. In its assessment of national security threats in the post-Cold War world, it has correctly determined that international organized crime--including narcotics--is one of our most serious challenges. Some foreign policy issues are a threat to our internal interests, others to our external interests. No issue, however, simultaneously threatens our internal and external interests so severely and persistently as narcotics. The Vice President has said that narcotics inflicts a $60 billion a year drain on our society. The costs become incalculable when we add the number of lives lost or destroyed to drugs.

At the same time, narcotics trafficking undermines democracy, rule-of-law, and free-market economies abroad, endangering our basic foreign policy interests. If left unchecked, drug-related corruption will reach to the highest levels of government. Bolivia and Panama were examples, Nigeria and Colombia are examples, and might I suggest that countries in this region could be in danger as well. This destroys all basis of trust between governments. Traffickers weaken democracies through their deliberate and effective penetration of legislatures, judiciaries, security forces, even the media. And this destroys trust between citizens and their government. Meanwhile, large doses of drug money distort economies and incomes, undermining legitimate businesses and imperiling free-market economies.

Many countries don't want to acknowledge this, but we have seen enough examples to know that it is true. We need to get the word out and accepted. For once they admit it is in their national interest to fight the drug threat, we have a much stronger basis for bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

At the policy level, we have made our commitment to attacking this problem crystal clear. Last October, President Clinton centered his address to the 50th Anniversary of the UN General Assembly on the need to combat international organized crime. This was an unprecedented message. He announced a comprehensive international counter-crime initiative. And to ensure that his message sank in, he warned that the United States was moving to take extraordinary actions against money launderers and prepare sanctions against money laundering countries.

Secretary Christopher, in a recent speech at Harvard, reasserted that combating international narcotics and crime is one of our top five foreign policy priorities. CIA Director Deutch has publicly made the same point. And the President has buttressed these enunciations with three Presidential Decision Directives that focus specifically on international narcotics and crime. The most recent one, last November, is PDD-44: the heroin PDD.

We'll use PDD-44 as the basis for developing a comprehensive heroin strategy. It states that international heroin control is a major foreign policy objective and that we are to develop programs that complement domestic efforts and blunt the potential impact of the international trade on our interests. For starters, it directs us to:

1) Work through diplomatic and public channels to boost international awareness of the growing heroin threat;

2) Promote the United Nations Drug Control Program and regional financial institution involvement;

3) Bring law enforcement efforts to bear against the principal organizations that are involved in heroin production, processing, distribution, and transit; and

4) Address the underground banking systems that finance trafficker operations.

In addition, it mandates more aggressive use of the certification process. And it puts the focus squarely on Burma, including the requirement to develop counternarcotics programs there, provided that the political and human rights conditions are right.

This is a tall order for which we all recognize more resources are needed. I wish I could report good news. Instead, all I can tell you is that our funding future is uncertain at best, but not bright. The Department and the President are supportive. They backed our FY96 budget request, even over OMB's objections. That request would have provided enough funds to keep our programs afloat, even expanded in some areas. For FY97, we are requesting $250 million for international narcotics and crime control--$25 million more than our FY96 request. OMB has already slashed it by $100 million though, and Secretary Christopher will again likely make a run at the President this week or next to get it restored.

Even so, we still face an uphill struggle with Congress. Since 1991, the Hill has slashed our budget over 30%, from $150 million down to $105 million in FY95. We are getting less than half of what the President has been requesting. As hard as it is to believe, we could have fared worse. When the FY96 Foreign Operations Bill was finally enacted, we had fought our way up from a House mark of $100 million to $115 million, with authorization to spend an additional $20 million of Economic Support Funds for counternarcotics.

We still have crippling restrictions on our Burma program. The Foreign Ops bill prohibits the use of any of this money for narcotics control or crop substitution assistance to the Government of Burma. It does earmark at least $380,000 in ESF for crop substitution programs in cooperation with the Kachin. And it leaves open the question of working through the UN, other multilateral donors, and non-governmental organizations.

There are signs, however, that sentiment to restrict our Burma efforts is changing. Congressman Rohrbacher has introduced the Burma Freedom and Democracy Act which would allow us to provide some limited training and interdiction assistance to the Burmese government and to support multilateral counternarcotics activities there. Its prospects for passage are uncertain. Even so, I hope we can exploit this small opening and possibly improve our prospects for FY97 with some solid accomplishments.

We have opportunities to build on. In Thailand and Laos, we have proven that we can implement effective crop control programs provided that we can work with host nation governments and have the funds to support alternative development and eradication projects. On the enforcement side, the Tiger Trap operation proves that senior traffickers are not invincible so long as we have good intelligence and the cooperation of dedicated and well-trained host nation police forces.

So, with these constraints and opportunities, what can we do? First, I believe we have to start from the premise that the Administration has not accepted the lack of funding as an excuse for not achieving better drug control results, and foreign governments and posts should not construe it as such either. Simply put, the formula for results is the application of ability and will. They are mutually dependent, but one--ability--is essentially a resource issue: spending money on training, equipment, and so forth to enhance operations. Enhanced will, on the other hand, is fundamentally a political calculation. Governments must simply give the order to act, make the best use of their resources, and combat corruption. To the extent they do that and still come up short, we can boost their ability through program support. However, if they don't do that, all efforts in the world to improve ability won't yield results.

To overcome the budget barriers, we are relying increasingly on initiatives to boost the "will" part of the equation. Certification is the most obvious. We began applying more aggressive performance standards two years ago and the policy is working. We have issued more denials of certification and national interest waivers than ever, including to countries with whom we otherwise have--or had--close bilateral relations such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. Nearly every one has responded with improved efforts and closer cooperation at--and here is the important point--hardly any additional cost to us.

Through PDD-42--the counter-crime directive--we will apply similar leverage against the money laundering problem which is an integral part of the overall narcotics threat. We are now compiling a worldwide list of major money laundering countries and will soon begin notifying the worst offenders that they need to improve their performance or begin working with us to do so. If they do not, the President, based on our recommendation, will determine whether severe economic sanctions, including denying continued access to the American financial system, should be applied.

Anti-corruption is another area where low-cost efforts can have significant benefits. Corruption of senior officials is an expensive insurance policy that allows traffickers to operate with impunity. But it can be undermined cheaply by making it--or threatening to make it--public. This, of course, is a sensitive issue where we must be careful about the veracity of the information and sources and methods. However, on selected occasions when we have played the corruption card, the benefits have been significant. We have gotten corrupt officials removed from office, and prevented others from being appointed. More important, we have raised the public's consciousness of the narcotics threat, and they have responded by demanding greater accountability by their government.

In a similar vein, we need to personalize the drug threat: make the major traffickers household names; give the public faces to focus on. This makes the fight against drugs more concrete; it spotlights the fact that real people are causing real damage. It creates verifiable measures of effectiveness by which the public can hold authorities accountable. Governments either have or have not taken effective actions against these individuals. We have accomplished this with Khun Sa, but need to do it with more traffickers throughout the region. Our rewards program is a cheap but effective instrument in this regard.

Political will, of course, will not do the job alone. As I mentioned, will and ability are mutually reinforcing, and there is a great deal that must be accomplished to enhance the region's counternarcotics capabilities. We must focus our efforts carefully, however. The narcotics trade is a target-rich environment, and we can squander a lot of resources in a hurry if we are not careful. We must therefore ensure that our programs are integrated and designed to reach and destroy the most critical targets. Inter-agency cooperation is critical in this regard.

Crop control, training, institution-building, and linkage are among the key program areas we need to look at closely to get to this goal. Crop control, based on both alternative development and eradication, looms as one of our toughest issues for various political, budgetary, and tactical reasons. But it is essential if we are to permanently reduce the Southeast Asian heroin threat. We need to plan a strategy for Burma under different scenarios, and we need to address the roles for other donors. Alternative development is a potentially fertile area for IFI and MDB involvement, but the push will almost certainly have to be generated by the host nations themselves.

Training is a second key area. It is a staple in our program. Having provided counternarcotics training to thousands of Southeast Asian officials over the decades, we should have a strong cadre of highly skilled, indigenous drug agents. But are we getting the results from them we deserve? Does our training still have the right focus; do the courses match the threat? Have we over-trained in some countries and not enough in others? Can we use training effectively to draw in countries that are reluctant to participate, or see themselves as only peripherally involved, in international narcotics control efforts? I think we have a lot to examine in this area with potentially high returns.

Third is institution-building: which ones are important and where do we have significant gaps. I am struck by the fact that several institutions must link together to make law enforcement efforts effective: legislatures must pass adequate laws, the police must be strong enough to perform, and the judiciary skillful enough to prosecute, convict, and incarcerate. Since the weakest link determines the outcome, institution-building must progress evenly across all fronts. Do we have imbalances and strategies to correct them?

And finally, linkage where much of these efforts come together. The Linkage Committee has been a model of how inter-agency counternarcotics cooperation can work effectively. It brings together all of the relevant counternarcotics agencies in Washington and allows them to coordinate their efforts in a unified campaign against major targeted kingpins and organizations. We believe this effort has been enormously successful and valuable. The program has already resulted in the arrests of major heroin traffickers in a number of countries in the region. Most notable was Operation Tiger Trap which resulted in the arrest of 11 major Shan United Army traffickers. We want to hear the views of those in the field on how we can refine and improve the process.

As I see them, these are some of the principal issues, opportunities, and constraints that will help frame our discussions this week and the product we will produce. This conference is an opportunity to begin putting together for the first time a comprehensive regional strategy with high-level Administration backing. The timing is propitious. The Administration is poised to create the President's Council on Counternarcotics. Chaired by the President and composed of the principals from all agencies with a major role in international narcotics control, it is to address international supply-reduction issues, including strategies and resources. What better way to cement the backing for our effort than to set the results of this conference squarely before the Council. I can assure you, we are prepared to use this forum in every possible way to get the resources and inter-agency cooperation necessary to press ahead with solid strategies. If we can do that, I think you, we in Washington, and the Nation as a whole will begin to reap significant returns on this wise investment.

[end of document]

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