ACTIVISTS URGE WAR ON DRUG TRAFFICKING IN ACEH

North Sumatra Police must go all out to stop drug trafficking from the
war-torn province of Aceh following last week's arrest of three Acehnese
women here with 1.5 tons of marijuana, antidrug campaigners say.

Secretary-general of the Indonesian Anti-Narcotics Movement (GAN) Zulkarnaen
Lubis said the flow of drugs from Aceh had reached an alarming level.

He said the cases of drugs trafficking from Aceh, uncovered by police in
North Sumatra, rose by over 100 percent, from 1,096 cases in 2001 to 2,264
last year.

"North Sumatra, being a neighbor of Aceh, is very vulnerable to drug
trafficking," Zulkarnaen said last Friday.

Marijuana grows in Aceh and drug dealers have taken advantage of the 26-year
separatist fighting there to turn Aceh into a drug production base for
neighboring regions, including Java and even part of the country's eastern
region.

Security forces and separatist rebels have allegedly received kickbacks from
the illegal business, making it difficult to put an end to it.

Around 1.5 tons of marijuana went missing from a police station in the North
Sumatra town of Binjai last year, after soldiers stormed it during a
shoot-out with police. The clash killed two civilians, five police officers
and one soldier.

Last Wednesday, police in North Sumatra caught three Acehnese women with 1.5
tons of marijuana, a crime Zulkarnaen said deserved the death sentence.

"If they are found guilty of possessing the marijuana, then based on
Narcotics Law No. 22/1997, the three suspects could face the death penalty,"
he said.

"To deter others, the police and legal authorities must have the courage to
sentence criminals to death," Zulkarnaen added.

Langkat Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Arman Depari in North Sumatra agreed
that the three women should receive capital punishment if they were proven
to be drug dealers.

There were two cases in which defendants were given the death sentence in
North Sumatra last year, but neither has been executed so far.

According to Zulkarnaen, the delay sent wrong signals to drug dealers as
they would think the court was not serious. "It's no wonder drug dealers
never learn from their mistakes, the death penalty is in fact only on
paper," he said.

Another bad example was the court verdict against Asiong who was convicted
of carrying 50 kilograms of crystal amphetamine locally known as
shabu-shabu. His sentence of four years and four months was reduced to 13
months by a court official who falsified a court document.

Arman further said the police were still investigating the possibility of a
third party using the three women to bring the marijuana from Aceh to North
Sumatra.

"For now, we are assuming that the three suspects were not acting on their
own. There could just be couriers. We are hunting down the main player in
the case," Arman said.

He admitted that Langkat is prone to drug trafficking from Aceh, and said
that the local police were determined to uproot the network of drug dealers
there.