Embassy of the United States

Speech

Airport Interdiction Training Graduation

Excellencies, honored guests, immigration, customs, and anti-drug officers, border liaison officials, and Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agents:

Thank you for inviting me here today.  I'm delighted to be here to congratulate you as you complete your 5-day Airport Interdiction Training course.  This course, funded by the State Department and taught by Special Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, underlines the shared US and Cambodian commitment to fighting international crime.

This counternarcotics program illustrates that as partners, we assist each other in tackling our toughest problems—whether those problems involve terrorism, human trafficking, or narcotics – Cambodia and America stand together.

The drug problem in Cambodia is very real, and Cambodia’s airports are an important battleground in the fight against drugs.  Cambodia’s airports are one route through which  cocaine and ecstasy are trafficked into Cambodia, and heroin and methamphetamines are trafficked out.  And of course, this problem is not unique to Cambodia.  We're able to help share our knowledge about battling drugs because we're also fighting the drug trade in our own country.  America, like Cambodia, has a serious drug problem, but together we can alleviate much of the problem.

The war on drugs, like the war on terror is a long, arduous struggle.  It does not lend itself to quick, easy solutions, and it cannot be won only by conventional means.  But the primary ingredient in this war is closer cooperation and coordination among like-minded countries, such as the United States and Cambodia.  In fact, we’ve already had a number of successes thanks to our close cooperation.  In the past few years, we’ve shared information about potential drug couriers transiting Cambodia and worked together to seize drugs being trafficked via Cambodia’s airports.  In one case, Cambodia and the US worked together to track the delivery of thousands of ecstasy tablets from Europe to Cambodia.  That one case led to three arrests, a ten year prison sentence, and further ecstasy seizures in Phnom Penh.

Through these training exercises and close cooperation, we are working together to stem the tide of ecstasy, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other drugs.  The close working relationship that we've forged with the Anti-Drugs Department over the past ten years is one that I hope can serve as a model for bilateral cooperation in other areas.

As we know all too well in the United States, the drug trade does not only affect drug users, it affects us all.  Narcotics trafficking leads to increased violence and other crimes, and money spent on drugs and on the war on drugs is money that could otherwise be used to help improve people's lives through education and economic development.  I am glad that today we can stand together to applaud these thirty-five newly-trained immigration, customs, and anti-drug officers and border liaison officials and to reaffirm our commitment to work together to battle this problem.