VZCZCXRO6976
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHPF #1163/01 1730818
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
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