Duterte Pushing Philippines’ Drugs Market to Indonesia: Anti-Narcotics Chief

Indonesia’s anti-narcotics chief has declared Indonesia to have the “biggest” illicit drugs market in the world, revealing 72 international drug syndicates were detected last year. Commissioner General Budi Waseso said the sustained extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders in the Philippines had led to an increase in trafficking into Indonesia.

“Indonesia is even the biggest [drugs] market in the world, in my opinion,” Commissioner General Waseso said.

“The market that existed in the Philippines is moving to Indonesia, the impact of [Philippines] President [Rodrigo] Duterte’s actions is an exodus to Indonesia, including the substance.”

The anti-drugs chief has softened his previous praise for Mr Duterte’s bloody crackdown on drugs.

“I will not follow or copy it, I don’t even support it,” he said. More than 7000 suspected drug offenders have been killed by police or vigilantes in the Philippines since Mr Duterte’s war on drugs began after his election win in May last year.

But in the past week, comparisons have been drawn with Indonesia’s anti-drugs approach after both the President and the Police Commissioner General Budi Waseso made no apologies for any offenders killed by Police. Chief ordered Police to shoot drug offenders who resist arrest.

“Be firm, especially to foreign drug dealers who enter the country and resist arrest,” President Joko Widodo said. Commissioner General Waseso said he did not know how many offenders had been killed this year, but made no apologies for those who had.

He also called for the increased use of the death penalty, although admitted there had been no impact on the drug trade since the executions of the two Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan and others.

“You can’t see the impact yet because we still have doubts in implementing it [the death penalty] because of pressure from the outside. We’ve only been serious in dealing with drug-related crime recently,” he said.

The Commissioner General said corrupt officials made his job harder. And the anti-drugs boss defended his idea for a prison island for drug offenders, making clear he was not joking when he said it should be guarded by crocodiles.