War on Drugs

Page 10: Daily Graphic, April 11, 2012.
tory: Albert K. Salia

“WHAT do you gain writing on the activities of drug dealers? That is a business they have chosen to do to make money and I don’t see why you or any other person should be worried and disturbed by their activities”, an educated professional asked me.
“You and I, our children and children’s children and in fact, the whole society gains from reading some of the activities or any literature on drugs. If for nothing at all, what is happening in Mexico should serve as a warning to all of us that we need to join forces so that we do not get to that stage”, I responded.
In an article published in the January 29, 2012 edition of the London-based The Observer, former UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, raised the alarm bells of the activities of drug barons in West Africa and called for “urgent action now before the grip of the criminal networks linked to trafficking of illicit drugs tightens into a stranglehold on West African political and economic development”.
To Busumuru Annan, if urgent action is not taken immediately, the progress made in democratic practice, health, development and education among others stood the risk of being plunged into the dark.
“It would be a tragedy if drugs were again to plunge West Africa into conflict and destroy the progress and hard-won democratic gains of recent years. We must all come together to prevent such a disaster”, he implored.
In its 2011 Report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted that although the role of West Africa in cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe might have decreased if judged from seizures only,“but there are other indications that traffickers may have changed their tactics, and the area remains vulnerable to a resurgence in trafficking of cocaine”.
Although there was no report on seizures from a number of countries including Ghana since 2009 to the UNODC, it said “ cocaine trafficking in West Africa persisted, and Africa, especially West Africa, remained vulnerable to a resurgence. In 2008, the largest annual seizures of cocaine in Africa were registered by Ghana, 841 kilogrammes, Sierra Leone, 703 kg, Togo, 393 kg, falling to 34 kg in 2009, Nigeria, 365 kg, rising to 392 kg in 2009 and South Africa, 156 kg, rising to 234 kg in 2009.
Change in Tactics?
The UNODC concedes that it is possible that the drug dealers have changed their tactics or diversified their routes to outwit law enforcement agencies. It is also a fact that some of the international partners for lack of confidence in the security agencies of some countries, often overlook the cases in those countries points of entry and exit and arrest the culprits in their own home countries. For someone to assume therefore, that drug traffickers were avoiding his/her country because of low level of arrests is wrong.
Over the years, drug dealers have always found ways and means to also outwit law enforcement agents. Apart from the early practice where drug couriers boldly carried drugs in their hand-bags or suitcases, we have witnessed other tactics including hiding them in foodstuffs and the common practice of swallowing the drugs.
In the case of women, some insert the drugs in their private parts, braid it as part of their hairdo, put it in sanitary pads as if they were menstruating or put them in the pampers of their children, wheel-chairs among others.
The men have often resorted to the more known tricks of swallowing, inserting it in their anus, putting the drugs in their bags among others.
Corruption:
According to the 2011 State Department Report on Ghana, criminals in Ghana launder illicit proceeds through investment in banking, insurance, real estate, automotive import, and general import businesses, and reportedly, donations to religious institutions.
It recorded 50 Suspicious Transactions Reports (STRs) between January 2010 and November 2010.
STRs are transactions which give rise to reasonable ground of suspicion that the transactions may involve proceeds of an offence or may involve financing of the activities relating to terrorism.
Broad categories of reason for suspicion and examples of suspicious transactions are false identity of client, suspicious background of client, multiple accounts, activity in accounts, nature of transactions and value of transactions.
In view of this, the US urged the government of Ghana to fully implement its customer due diligence and reporting requirements across all covered sectors and institute a beneficial ownership identification requirement, requiring the true names of all onshore and offshore entities and their beneficial owners to be held in a registry accessible to law enforcement.
It also challenged the government of Ghana to make every effort to pass asset seizure and forfeiture legislation that comports with international standards as soon as possible
The former UN chief said West Africa and other regions in Africa faced three inter-related dangers from illegal drug trafficking, namely, the threat from drug-funded corruption, which could corrode fledging state institutions and undermine good governance and the rule of law; the risk that drug traffickers linked up with other criminal elements or, worse, terrorist groups that may be trying to infiltrate and destabilise the region.
“Finally, there is the harmful impact on the health and social cohesion of local communities caused by growing drug consumption by people within the region. Evidence of this disturbing trend is already apparent”, he said and pointed to a 2009 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Report that a “third of the South American cocaine destined for Europe and shipped via West Africa was consumed locally”.
Agreeing to what the former UN Secretary-General has stated, a former National Security Co-ordinator, Mr Kofi Bentum Quantson, observed that there seemed to be a slackening pace in fighting the drug menace in the sub-region.
He said the government’s initial momentum of fighting the drug menace had not been systematically sustained because of three possible reasons.
First, it was possible that the appreciation of the drug problem as a national security issue has waned. Secondly, a certain degree of complacency appears to have developed and third, other competing national security imperatives had overshadowed the menace.
Mr Quantson said that over the last two decades or so, the country had not made any serious effort to address the drug problem holistically and that explained why people enthusiastically welcomed President J. E. A. Mills’ decision to re-open investigations into all the high-profile cases.
It was expected that that would have been the best opportunity to publicly revisit all the various aspects of the problem from arrests through to the judiciary.
He said the challenges that would have been exposed could form an informed basis to formulate more effective policies and strategies, stressing that “the failure to involve the public in identifying the chain in drug dealing is a major obstacle”.
“Unless we know what went wrong, has gone wrong and is going wrong, we will not able to deal with the problem effective”, he stated.
He advocated for an efficient enforcement regime on a sustained base.
He explained that enforcement should not be seen only in the area of arrests, successful prosecution and convictions.
The crowning point, he noted, should be the swift confiscation of the assets of drug dealers, stressing that “confiscation is key to the success in fighting the drug war”.
Discussing the confiscation of drug-related assets, he observed that, “We have not seen much of this action in the last couple of years. It is a huge deficit in the fight against the drug menace. Drug barons are encouraged to bribe their way if their ill-gotten wealth is not confiscated”, he said.
On prevention and education, he lamented that that aspect of the fight against illicit drug dealing appeared to be dying because it is not in active evidence speculating that probably the HIV/AIDS menace and other pressures seemed to have taken the steam out of the war on drugs.
“The strategy to prevent people from going into drugs should not be undermined”, he stated.
Mr Quantson noted that if that aspect was taken seriously, there were two major benefits to be realised.
First, was the fact that when people are sensitised they would refrain from drugs and secondly, and even more importantly, once sensitised, persons become part of the intelligence collection effort of the enforcement system generally.
He bemoaned the slow pace of trial of drug cases and the lack of urgency in the prosecution of drug cases.
These, he observed, created room for manoeuvring and corruption.
“Don’t forget corruption is the oxygen of the drug business. In fact, the drug industry thrives on corruption”, he said, adding that “corruption is what keeps the drug industry alive and its insurance for the future. That is a serious threat to the future of democracy”.
He maintained that Ghana’s democracy could be really at risk because of the subversive activities of drug dealers, who through bribery and corruption, could influence and destroy good governance and compromise the outcome of court cases.
He quoted Reisslaer Lee III, an authority on the drug industry in South America that “… when a criminal organisation as large as the cocaine industry searches for protection, corruption is spawned on a massive and unprecedented scale. Cocaine traffickers have bought into the political system and can successfully manipulate the institutions, the press, police, military and judiciary”.
Mr Quantson emphasised that corruption, disturbingly pervasive in the sub-region, “is the most brutal enemy of democracy. Corruption in this context should be extended to the more subtle and dangerous destabilising aspect of destroying decency, ethics, morality and the fear of God”.