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Venezuela Controlling Drug Flows
Caracas - After pressure by drug traffickers
who are using its territory as bridge to move drugs,
Venezuela is planning to strengthen its legal
mechanisms to face this scourge.
Parliamentary sources state that an essential aspect
in fighting drug trafficking is national air control
about which a bill will be ready to be sanctioned in
no more than two months.
The Control Law for Comprehensive Defense of
Airspace will constitute an unprecedented
legislation in the South American country that
shares with Colombia over 1,360 miles of a
complicated inaccessible border in some sectors.
This geographical condition means drug smuggling,
mainly cocaine, from Colombia to Venezuela, which is
neither producer nor consumer, to move it to US and
Europe markets, the biggest of the world.
In a meeting with Parliamentarians held this week
the chairman of National Drug Office (ONA) Nestor
Reverol explained that traffickers usually use
airspace for their business which is probed by the
destruction of 233 clandestine landing strips.
For Reverol the fact that great quantities of oil
were seized at those strips forced the government to
establish procedure to supervise supply of planes.
The legislative initiatives must step up the work
with armed bodies in charge of watching the borders
strengthened last year with Russian helicopters and
now with 10 Chinese radar systems.
It has also acquired 18 K8 Chinese planes that
arrive this year with the objective to be used to
intercept aircraft in illegal flights.
In legislators opinion the new law must become a
legal instrument to back Venezuela daily fights and
stop it as a springboard for drugs. |
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