Chinese and Vietnamese police launched a joint anti-heroin
campaign on December 1, the first of its kind in the border area
and lasting around 40 days.?
The two countries share a land border of over 2,370 kilometers
and, as relations have improved in recent years, they have
witnessed a booming frontier trade. Taking Puzhai -- a
two-square-kilometer border village -- as an example, it has more
than 1,000 stores and receives nearly 30,000 travelers each day
from Vietnam, Thailand and the mainland.
But this flourishing business has also made the region a haunt
of international heroin traffickers.
In November, southwest China's Guangxi
Zhuang Autonomous Region and the neighboring Vietnamese
province of Lang Son decided to tackle the increasingly prevalent
heroin trade together.
On December 6, Guangxi police tracked down a Vietnamese woman in
Puzhai, seizing over 9,600 grams of heroin from her suitcase and
hotel room.
Between December 20 and 22, 900 police officers from Pingxiang
City, and Ningming, Longzhou and Daxin counties destroyed a number
of traffickers' hideouts and arrested more than 150 drug users.
One 15-year-old boy was apprehended for smuggling in the border
village of Tudigong. During his interrogation, the teenager showed
composure beyond his?age as he explained, "My relative married
a Vietnamese woman. She taught me how to smuggle drugs. And for
each pack she paid me 10 yuan."
"We already paid his tuition," his parents complained. "He left
school and engaged in drug trafficking all day long, turning a deaf
ear to other people's advice."
A disturbing scene was uncovered in one of the village's houses:
bloody disposable syringes and packing paper were scattered all
around, and graffiti in chalk on a paint-peeled wall read,
"Baifen (heroin) thirsty? Welcome to the village."
Pointing to another house not far away, a pupil living in the
village said: "There are more syringes there. They used to sell
drugs in that house. Later addicts hid there to use drugs."
When asked whether he knew using heroin was a crime, the pupil
replied: "Of course. My teacher said people could contract HIV by
using drugs."
Ningming County shares a boundary of over 200 kilometers with
Vietnam, and has four townships along its border where the heroin
trade has run rampant. During the December 21 action, police
smashed 18 dealers' hideouts and detained 91 suspected drug
users.
Since heroin use started to gain ground in China in the 1980s,
its use and smuggling have strengthened the prevalence of organized
crime as well as the spread of infections like HIV and hepatitis.
This has caused tremendous losses in both human and pecuniary
terms.
By the end of 2003, there were a total of 1.05 million
registered drug users, of whom 74 percent were classified as young
people. The situation continues to deteriorate; according to Yang
Fengrui, director of the Ministry of Public Security's Anti-drug
Bureau, of the nation's total 2,863 counties, 2,201 reported drug
cases last year.
Luo Feng, vice minister of public security, said a draft
anti-drug law will be submitted to the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress (NPC)
for examination and approval this year. It is expected to be
formally promulgated in 2006.
Meanwhile, over recent years cooperation has been strengthened
with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar to fight drug trafficking together.
As the notorious Golden Triangle has moved northward, Guangxi has
become another transfer station, following Yunnan.
Mounting supply has led to widespread consumption. Since the
first heroin user was reported here in 1988, by June 2003 the
number of registered users in the autonomous region exceeded 50,000
and continues to rise.
Sources with Guangxi's Department of Public Security said the
Sino-Vietnamese joint anti-drug campaign aims to crack down on
international drug dealers, reduce illegal drug entry to a minimum,
and eventually, turn the frontier into a heroin-free area.
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, January 25, 2005)