THE FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS

The fatal shootout in which five foreign nationals met their violent deaths
in a South Jakarta neighborhood last week once again highlights Indonesia's
growing significance as both a market and a link in the international
narcotics trade.

The five foreigners -- two from Nigeria, one from Liberia, one from Togo
and one from the Ivory Coast, and all of them suspected members of an
international drug syndicate -- were killed in an evening police raid on a
rented house in a neighborhood that had for some time been under
surveillance for being suspected as a center for the group's clandestine
operations.

Only hours before the incident, police at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport had detained seven suspected local Indonesian members
of the syndicate as two of them were on the point of leaving Jakarta on a
Cathay Pacific flight to London. Fifteen kilograms of cocaine and 1.6
kilograms of heroin were seized in the airport operation.

The results of last week's police operation against international drug
dealers in Jakarta were the biggest ever scored so far in recent years. But
while they may not have been particularly spectacular when compared to
similar cases that have occurred in some of the world's major drug trading
centers, they nevertheless accentuate the need for Indonesians to wake up
to the danger of their country being quietly ensnared in the deadly global
web of the narcotics trade, with all the consequences which that may bring.

Accurate and reliable statistics on the drug trade and drug abuse in
Indonesia have, so far, been as good as nonexistent. Official police
figures in Jakarta, for example, show that 412 "drug cases", meaning,
apparently, the arrest and trial of drug pushers and users, occurred in
Jakarta during the first seven months of 1999 -- a figure which even the
police themselves do not believe.

Only last month, Jakarta police spokesman Lt. Col. Zainuri Lubis conceded
to the media that the figure was probably meaningless because "there were
hundreds of such cases that went unrecorded during that period."

Even so, even those highly approximate figures that the police has been
able to compile show that the trend in drug trafficking and drug abuse is
rapidly rising in this country.

In 1995, according to official statistics, 194 drug cases were handed by
the Jakarta police to the prosecutor's office for processing. The next
year, the figure had risen to 249, the following year to 605 and 432 last
year. Statistics aside, media reports and complaints by worried teachers
and parents of pushers having begun to move their operations to secondary
schools, and in some cases even elementary schools, are cause for
considerable concern.

What, then, should or can be done to fight this growing drug menace?

Police spokesman Lt. Col. Zainuri said, "We are doing our best. But what's
the use of all our work when drug dealers can get out of jail after no more
than six months, whereas they are actually guilty and are sentenced to
years in prison." Some dealers, according to Zainuri, are out after only
three months in jail. "And that's it. They begin their business all over
again.

Our job is to catch the dealers, but what are the (other) institutions doing?"

The law, at present, prescribes a prison sentence of up to 15 years in
prison or a fine of at least Rp 200 million (US$27,000). Obviously, sterner
punishment for drug pushing is in order.

Of late, a public debate has been going on over the advisability of
introducing the death sentence for drug dealers -- a measure that is
already being applied in some other countries in this region.

Many rights-conscious citizens in this country are certain to oppose such
an extreme ruling.

On the other hand, there are many others who regard such a measure as
fitting in order to protect the large majority of innocent citizens.

Whatever the outcome of this debate, it is time that serious thought is
given to setting up a legal and bureaucratic mechanism that is effective in
stemming this alarming trend.