This week singer Iryn Namubiru made it back on home soil after a harrowing two weeks in Japanese detention. Her trip to perform in Japan went only as far as the airport where a search of her bags found her to be in possession of illicit drugs.
The singer needs to thank her lucky stars.
Asia has been fighting the drug problem for centuries – the
Opium wars between the England and China in the 19th century were
over the Asian nation’s desire to stop the importation of the potent drug by
British merchants. As a result of this long history many have a zero tolerance
policy for the trafficking and use of illicit drugs.
China is world famous for sentencing hundreds to death for
trafficking in drugs, other Asian nations also prescribe death sentences but at
best long prison sentences in the deplorable conditions.
The details are still scanty about how her release came
about but it probably helped that Namubiru holds a French passport.
Drug related crime has been growing steadily over the last
two decades in Uganda. Anecdotal evidence suggests that we have moved from
being a transit point for drugs from Asia to Europe and become consumers.
Part of the reason is that our laws against offenders are
lenient with drug trafficers suffering a fine of a million shillings or a year
in prison. This is ridiculous viewed against the street value of a stomach full
of cocaine, which may run into billions of shillings.
Everything happens for a reason and Iryn’s experience should
serve as a wake up call for our politicians and law enforcement agencies.
The drug trade does not work in isolation. The same networks
used to traffic drugs are used in human trafficking, smuggling, gun running and
any number of illicit trade enterprises.
To think that as long as my family and friends are drug free
is to take a narrow view of the situation.
In terms of the economy the proceeds from illicit trade have
to be laundered. It has been known for a long time that the land inflation in
Kampala is due to hot money and is not supported by general income levels in
the city. These funds distort the economy, knocking out genuine businessmen out
of work and living the field open to counterfeit and substandard goods
endangering the society as a whole.
But even more scary is that if these networks take route in
our backyard they tend to proliferate like a virus, inserting themselves in
every aspect of our lives and in extreme cases they take over whole
governments.
And if you think about Uganda would be a prime candidate for
takeover.
We are literally at the center of the world, with less than
a day’s flying to Asia and Europe. We have relatively weak security systems.
Our officials are corrupt to the gills and we have a lot of desperate people
seduced by the good life and willing to do anything to make a quick coin. Our
national budget is under $5b, it would take considerably less to secure this
country as a illicit trade hub, a funnel for billions of dollars sloshing
around in the shady underworld of drugs, human trafficking and money laundering.
And once crime takes over our streets it’s only a matter of
time before its running our government, with rest of us working as indentured
labourers or markets for their nefarious products.
As farfetched as this scenario may seem it has already
happened in the recent past in Europe.
In Montenegro, to get around western imposed sanctions on
the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, they leased ports and airports to cigarette
smugglers. With a foot in the door these gangs have never gone away trafficking
in addition to cigarettes, in women and
narcotics.
Organised crime induced corruption was so bad that Italy had
a warrant out on the head of former Prime minister Milo Djukanovic for his role
in smuggling cigarettes.
So let Irynn’s ordeal not be in vain lets clamp down on this
vice now before it spirals out of control.
