As of January 23, the Interior Ministry has dismissed about 70 police officials across the country since a crackdown on various criminal offenses within the police force including drug abuse began in November last year.
In the latest dismissal, Interior Minister Sar Sokha fired Lieutenant Colonel Nath Ratana, Prey Veng provincial police for alleged wrongdoing. This was preceded by the sacking of Brigadier-General Suon Tosit, who was deputy director of the Administration Office of Drug Crimes of the National Police, last December, as well as 10 other Phnom Penh police officers.
The ministry has implemented a strict measure to prevent drug use among its officials and to achieve zero cases in the future, its spokesperson Touch Sokhak said.
Sokhak confirmed that out of the 70 dismissals, 40 officials tested positive for drugs and the rest were found to have violated internal regulations.
“This number is not final [as] the ministry is continuing its work. Police officers and officials who test positive for drugs will face the law and will be fired,” he said.
The drug test campaign has been put in place to check all officers across the country as per Prime Minister Hun Manet and Interior Minister Sar Sokha’s instructions following the new government’s mandate last year.
“We will continue to check all our officers across the country and take legal action against those who test positive. We don’t want to have any officers who are addicted to drugs in the future,” Sokhak said.
Contending that it is not going to be easy to carry out crackdowns, it was nonetheless important that it is done. “Our minister uttered one sentence ‘cleaning our house’. It means that all our officers must be clean so that they can deal with drug [cases] smoothly and effectively in the country.”
Meanwhile, Am Sam Ath, operations director of rights group Licadho told CamboJA that drug testing on Ministry of Interior’s police officers is a good move. It is an effective approach to crack down on drug offenses among the ranks of officials, who hold high positions in the law enforcement institution. They play an important role in preventing and stopping drug crimes nationwide.
“A police officer must not be involved in drugs. The strict action of dismissing police officers with high ranks and firing them after testing positive drugs is a good way of warning them,” he shared.
However, he said, the dismissal of ministry officials who tested positive on Thursday shows their involvement in drugs for a long time and might be the main reason why crackdowns on drug-related crimes in the country were ineffective previously.
Recalling former Interior Minister Sar Kheng’s comment that ‘it will be very difficult to prevent and crack down on drug offenses in Cambodia if law enforcement officials are involved in it’, Sam Ath said, this is the reason why the current government “is in a hurry to take action against those officials”.
He urged the ministry to continue the crackdown and not stop in the next term because drugs are a serious issue in Cambodia and difficult to prevent, even more so if law enforcement officials are involved.
Heng Kimhong, research and advocacy program manager of Cambodian Youth Network (CYN), opined that police officers who are drug users give the nation a bad image. It also creates an ill effect on society, he said, echoing Sam Ath’s view that this may have been a major reason behind the onerous elimination of drugs in the past.
“Police officers play an important role in the crackdown of drug offenses in the country. If they are drug users, how can they solve this serious problem? This is an issue that has a huge impact on law enforcement,” Kimhong told CamboJA.
In order to prevent such a serious issue in the country, the relevant ministries must also set up strict measures on the recruitment of police officers across the country. Candidates who are involved in drugs must not be allowed to sit for the police exam. “More importantly, the Interior Ministry must continue to expel any police officer found to be abusing drugs,” Kimhong said.
