{UAH} Kampala New Drugs Smuggling Route

Frank Mujabi/ Simomn Peter Okurut,

I listened to a very shocking programme on the BBC World Service at 4 AM this morning about the "Kampala Drug Route" that has just opened. I will try to get it later and post it here.

Basically the programme states that nearly 700 kgs of Afghanistan drugs, principally heroin and cocaine are passing through the Kampala route.  The Colombian gangs also now use the kampala route. The reason for this is tighter restrictions on the Asian routes through Turkey or China and then onwards to Europe and the USA.

The Mexican border now is very tight for the Colombian cartels to use, so they have been forced to develop new routes.

The Kampala route is now preferred by the drugs cartels because the drugs are smuggled in small boats across the Indian Ocean, which are very difficult to detect, to Mombasa or somewhere along the East African coast in Kenya, Tanzania or Mozanbique, which is thousands of miles long and can not be supervised.

Secondly, no legal jurisdiction applies on the open seas, so that even if these boats are detected and stopped by American, Nato and other European navies, the best they can do is to destroy the boats and the contraband cargo and let the dealers go free because they would not have committed any crime under international law. You would have to prove their actual destination in order to prosecute them, which means waiting for them to enter the territorial waters of a nation state before impounding them. But with hundreds of these small boats leaving India and Pakistan every day heading for the Indian Ocean, only few are ever impounded.

The programme also notes the sad effect on Uganda being a drug transit country, with many people being recruited as drugs mules to bring in the drugs from Kenya or Tanzania for export through Entebbe Airport. A typical fee for a successful trip from Tanzania to Uganda is $5,000. The drug distribution in Kampala is handled by mainly Nigerians and Indians, with Ugandans being mules.

The programme notes Uganda is now also quickly falling into the footsteps of other drug carrier route countries like Pakistan where drug abuse is fast becoming a social problem, with many young people taking up to the habit.

The Kayibanda government seems not to be aware of the problem or is in cahoots with the cartels, because one wonders how huge quantities of drugs can go through Entebbe airport undetected  and find its way into Europe and the USA.

Kayibanda's government has seriously atrophied before our very eyes, if it is now in cahoots with Colombian and Afghan drugs cartels!!! I wonder what NRA minions like Robert Atuhairwe, Haji Kateggaga, Edward irundrua Muilinda  and Tony Owana say about this very sad development in our country.

Bobby

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