A senior anti-narcotics police officer in southwest China's
Yunnan Province says the worldwide narcotics problem cannot be
ended by relying on military means.
As
a region adjacent to Asia's "Golden Triangle", the world's largest
drug-producing area, Yunnan has long been at the forefront of the
anti-narcotics battle in China. Reporters from a number of foreign
news media including the Associated Press (AP), the Washington
Post, Reuters and CNN were recently invited to investigate the
anti-narcotics work there.
Responding to a question on whether China had sent troops to
smash drug-making centers in northern Myanmar, Sun Dahong, deputy
director of the Bureau of Public Security of the province, said the
anti-narcotics departments in Yunnan had received no order from any
government department for going to northern Myanmar.
"Though Yunnan Province is adjacent to the drug-making base in
northern Myanmar and adversely affected by it, we never had plans
to send troops or armed police there for smashing the drug-making
centers," he added.
"In our view, it is no use to solve the problem of narcotics in the
"Golden Triangle" or elsewhere in the world by depending on
military means," Sun said.
He
said previous experience has showed that all military attacks on
drug production failed to yield satisfactory results. On the
contrary, they lead to a booming growth in drug production after
each attack.
The fundamental policy on wiping out sources of drug-making is to
bring about a social change, accelerate the regional economy of the
"Golden Triangle" and alter the economic structure there, he
said.
The Chinese government and the Yunnan Province have joined
international efforts to help the area grow substitute crops for
opium poppy, he concluded.
(Xinhua News
Agency, May 5, 2002)