Eliminating corruption in Police Dept. key to winning war on drugs/organised crime

Public Security Minister Tiran Alles recently issued a warning to drug dealers and members of criminal gangs to cease their operations immediately saying failure to do so would result in the use of “maximum force”. The warning came amidst intensified operations by the Police to crackdown on the growing drug menace and organised crime in the country.

Alles’s warning is disturbing and seems an attempt to replicate the former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal ‘war on drugs’ which resulted in the summary execution of thousands of Filipinos by government forces. 

In Sri Lanka, suspects taken into custody for drug-related offences and organised crime are dying under suspicious circumstances and custodial deaths are on the rise. The explanation by the Police for such deaths are rarely believable but the public too are apathetic given that those who die in custody are always labelled as persons engaged in ‘kudu business” or “kudukaroya” (drug dealers or drug addicts) and somehow deserve the fate they meet.

Physically eliminating drug dealers or addicts by State law enforcement authorities seems the quick fix for a problem that runs deep. The Police showcase the killings of such drug dealers as a success story, but it has done little to dent the growing use of drugs, particularly among the younger segments of the population nor stopped drug dealers carrying on with business as usual.

One main reason for this is corruption within the Police as well as other related Government bodies. Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe recently told Parliament that over 45% of seized drugs such as heroin turns out to be flour when they are tested by the Government Analyst Department. Unless police personnel who carry out such raids are unable to tell the difference between illicit drugs and flour, the most likely reason is that seized drugs are replaced with flour and sent for testing while the real ones are sold and the money pocketed by those who are entrusted with cracking down on illicit drugs.

Police Spokesman SSP Nihal Thalduwa said recently that there are approximately 4,000 kilograms of confiscated narcotics awaiting destruction with the related cases pending before courts. The Supreme Court recently permitted the destruction of 100 kilograms of seized drugs, but a large amount remains to be destroyed. What the public has seen so far are more public relations exercises where the police showcase a massive bonfire in which the public are expected to believe illicit drugs are burnt but such showpiece activities are rarely a genuine effort to rid the country of the drug menace.

The Public Security Minister and those in the Police hierarchy may feel that the use of “maximum force’ will be enough to deal with a serious problem that is engulfing the country’s youth. A raid at many of the night clubs in Colombo will be enough to understand the rampant use of drugs and that too with little hesitation or fear of being detected. The level of confidence among drug dealers, and buyers can only be because they know that the law enforcement authorities will turn a blind eye most times and carry out nominal raids to show that they are acting against such illicit activities.

Minister Alles and the top shots in the Police need to turn the search light inward and get their act in order first. The main reason this problem continues to get worse is due to corruption and nothing else. First crackdown on those in law enforcement who collude with those who are masterminds behind the proliferation of drugs in the country and drug dealers and have them punished. 

More than maximum force, what is needed is a more humane approach to deal with those who are falling prey to drugs and more empathy for those who are drawn into the drug trade due to social-economic conditions.