Mahathir bin MohamadPrime Minister, Your Excellencies:
I am very happy that on the eve of the Commonwealth Conference. Dr. Mahathir and I are signing an Agreement for further cooperation in tracking down drug traffickers.
We have to attack these people on three fronts: first, by getting at the deadly crops which they grow; secondly, by trying to persuade young people—and all people—not to purchase those drugs, because they can be quite deadly;and thirdly, to make certain that those who sell drugs or get tremendous proceeds from the sale, shall never have the knowledge that they can live on those proceeds.
The first thing is to catch them and, of course, give them a very stiff sentence. We found that some of them then thought that when they had completed that sentence, they could go and still live on their ill-gotten gains, and so it was two years ago in the United Kingdom that we passed a special National Bill that would enable us to go through bank accounts to confiscate the proceeds of drug trafficking. [end p1]
We also have the Commonwealth Scheme which enables us, from one Commonwealth country to another if we sign an agreement like this, to trace those proceeds beyond our own country through the bank of the country which signs the agreement. That is the significance of this Agreement today.
We have already signed nine bilateral agreements—this is the tenth—and so there is a network closing in on the drug barons. It has now extended to the United Nations which passed a Convention in 1988 that we should all attempt to confiscate these proceeds and, because this is a world problem, we must all cooperate with one another.
I am very grateful to the Prime Minister of Malaysia for the leadership which he has always shown in this particular subject and, of course, we have chaired great conferences on drugs to try to diminish their use and to catch those who perpetrate these crimes; and I think it is a demonstration of leadership by Malaysia and by the United Kingdom on the eve of the Commonwealth Conference and I am very happy that Dr. Mahathir has been able to make time to sign this significant Agreement (applause).