HEROIN TRAFFICKERS TARGET SCHOOLS

HASSAN Mbogo, a Tanzanian carrying a Ugandan passport, was arrested
on December 1 at Entebbe Airport. He came aboard Emirates Airlines,
from Tehran and through Dubai to Uganda.

Mbogo matched the profile of a drug trafficker, so when he arrived,
he was taken into an observation hall and given some food. Sure
enough, he passed out 64 pellets (640g) of heroin. He pleaded guilty
to drug trafficking and got away with a sh1m fine.

Two weeks later, Ally Abdul Mohamed, also Tanzanian, also arrived on
an Emirates aircraft from Tehran, was arrested and subjected to the
same treatment. He passed out 107 pellets of heroin, weighing 1.7 kg.
He confessed and was fined sh1m.

These are only two of an increasing number of drug traffickers
arrested at Entebbe Airport in possession of heroin. In the last week
of December alone, five people were found with the drugs in their
bodies. Most traffickers were freed after paying a fine of sh1m or
less. Only a few were imprisoned, with the longest jail term being 14
months. Abbab Munir Ahmed, a Pakistani national, was jailed for one
year in February for smuggling 3kg of heroin in his stomach.

Drug traffickers usually come from Tehran via Dubai, aboard Emirates
or Ethiopian Airlines. Several have Ugandan passports. Light
penalties and easy access to Ugandan passports make the country an
attractive place for drug traffickers.

The traffickers, largely foreign nationals, use the country mainly as
a transit route between Asian suppliers and Western consumers.
However, they are also increasingly targeting the children of the
rich in Kampala.

"Because of the weak laws we have in Uganda, traffickers find it
convenient to transit through Uganda," said Okoth Ochola, the Deputy
Director of the Department of Criminal Investigations.

"The current law -- the National Drug Policy and Authority Act -- is
too lenient. If you are convicted under that Act, you are either sent
to prison for one year or you pay a fine of not more than sh1m. Drug
traffickers, who make millions of dollars, would rather risk being
convicted in Uganda than in countries like Iran or Malaysia, where it
is a capital offence, carrying the death penalty." Attempts to revise
the law seem to have hit a dead end.

"A draft Bill has been pending for over five years but it has never
been tabled before Parliament," Ochola added.

According to Police statistics, a total of 17.7kg of heroin with a
total street value of sh479m in addition to 182.8kg of cannabis,
worth sh250m, was recovered in 2006. But a source involved in the
drug investigations told Sunday Vision that the figures may not be
representative of the situation on the ground. "The seizures may not
represent the reality of the trafficking activities in Uganda. Our
Police do not have adequate capacity to detect drugs," the source
said. Efforts to curb drug trafficking in Uganda have been limited to
profiling possible traffickers and observing passengers at the
airport, which has an international success rate of only about 20%.

Despite the presence of two sniffer dogs at the airport, neither the
passengers nor the cargo are checked.

"We don't check cargo in the planes. Only when we have information
that there could be something concealed do we use the sniffer dogs,"
said Robert Ojaba, the acting officer in charge of narcotics.

Part of the profiling is done in the country from which the passenger comes.

"When passengers come from countries like Pakistan and Iran, we put
them under surveillance and then look at their travel documents to
see how long they have stayed in those countries," Ojaba said. He
said the most common method of concealment was by swallowing pellets
made of hard polythene bags, which cannot dissolve in the stomach.
Each pellet contains about 10g of heroin.

"The traffickers are usually not comfortable and walk with a lot of
difficulty. They are also under strict instructions not to eat on the
plane as the moment they eat, the drugs will come out. They,
therefore, look dizzy and exhausted."

Swallowing heroin pellets is not without risk. John Mwanjabala was
arrested at Entebbe Airport on December 4. He passed out 95 pellets
of heroin. However, while relieving himself, something went wrong.
One pellet burst. He was rushed to Entebbe Hospital where he died
three days later. Though most of the drugs entering Uganda are
destined for Western markets, some are meant for the Ugandan market.
"The consumption of these expensive drugs has extended to children
from powerful families in some of the upper-class schools and
universities," a source in the Police said. Some of the victims are
being counselled in drug rehabilitation centres in the city.

"Nowadays you see many youth using drugs," said David Amanya, the
director of the National Care Centre in Bweyogerere, Kampala. "Our
centre, which is supposed to take only 15 people, is overwhelmed. The
number of those coming here to seek treatment as a result of drug
abuse is on the rise." Though the Police claim they have no knowledge
of heroin being sold on the streets of Kampala, Amanya said there are
shops selling drugs all over the city. "The drugs are being sold
openly. One gramme of heroin goes for as little as sh30,000," he said.

Witnesses say heroin is in circulation at a popular shopping mall in
central Kampala as well as busy hang-outs in the city's suburbs.

"Shops in expensive malls selling goods that have low demand are
usually fronts for drug dealers," the source said. Parents and head
teachers are not willing to talk about the problem, for fear of
stigma or negative publicity. However, teachers privately admit that
heroin and cocaine are a problem in their schools.

"Last year we discovered that six foreign pupils in Standard Six were
involved in taking heroin," said a teacher in one of the
international schools. "When we talked to one of them, he told us he
had learned the habit at home. We are trying to control it by
engaging counsellors." The drug traffickers reportedly have agents in
the schools, usually drug addicts who receive a commission each time
they get a new client.

Affected parents, who want to remain anonymous, complain that their
children steal at home in order to buy the drugs.

A former drug addict told Sunday Vision that heroin was being sold in
Kampala in different forms.

"There is one which comes in solid form, is melted on a coin and one
can snort it through the nose using a straw. A second type comes in
the form of an injection. The third type is mixed with food," he
said. Fighting the drug mafia has proven an extremely difficult task
all over the world, not just in Uganda.

"Dismantling the syndicates and arresting the kingpins is complicated
given the level of secrecy, strengthened by a sworn code of silence.
There is little or no contact between the kingpins and the couriers,"
said a Police source.

Investigations reveal that many of those arrested are lured into the
trade after promises of a better life. "We have arrested some
students who had been promised tuition fees, money, lucrative
businesses and cars in return for carrying the drugs," Ojaba said.

Investigations have also shown that elements within the Police were
in the past involved in the drug business. The commission of inquiry
chaired by Justice Julia Sebutinde that probed the Police revealed
that some senior police officers were protecting drug dealers.

Another source told Sunday Vision that the Inspector General of
Police has ordered an inventory of the drug section, following
allegations that seized drugs could have found their way back onto the market.

Lack of a harmonised legislature in the region makes it difficult to
curb the illegal trade. Neighbouring Kenya took a drastic step in the
war on drugs in 1993, when penalties for drug trafficking were
increased to life imprisonment, as well as fines of Kenyan sh1m,
equivalent to Ugandan sh25m.

A recent report by the United Nations warns of serious consequences
if the present trend is not checked. "As a spill-over effect of the
ongoing transit trafficking in heroin in the sub-region, the abuse of
heroin has become a problem in East Africa. It is feared that if left
unchecked, the problem of drug trafficking in Africa might further
exacerbate existing social, economic and political problems."