Memahami Sejarah dan Geopolitik Amerika Syarikat di Segi Tiga Emas Thailand: Hubungkait Ketagihan dan Penyeludupan Dadah serta Keselamatan Malaysia

Abstract

Makalah ini megkaji cadangan terkini kerajaan Perpaduan Malaysia yang baharu terbentuk untuk menyahjenayahkan isu penagihan dadah. Menerusi perspektif pertahanan dan keselamatan, penulis menyarakan agar keputusan tersebut tidak dilaksanakan dalam keadaan tergesa-gesa apabila langkah keselamatan sedia ada untuk menyekat penyeludupan dadah masih lemah. Dengan menjelaskan hubungan antara bekalan dadah haram di pasaran gelap Malaysia dan sindiket dadah transnasional, kita sewajarnya menelusuri sejarah Segi Tiga Emas Thailand serta penglibatan Agensi Perisikan Pusat (CIA) Amerika Syarikat (AS) dalam Segi Tiga dadah membawa kepada suatu ancaman keselamatan yang kompleks. Ini mengaitkan sejarah dadah dan pengenalan hukuman mati di Malaysia dengan sejarah pelarian militan komunis Malaya yang mendapat dukungan dari Vietnam utara. Hakikat perubahan semasa ketegangan kuasa AS-China beralih ke Laut China Selatan, sebarang percubaan semasa untuk menyahjenayah dadah mesti mengambil kira kerumitan geopolitik sejarah ancaman dadah. Ketika ini, kefahaman dadah sebagai ancaman keselamatan bergantung kepada hukuman mati mandatori bagi penyalahgunaan dadah dan ini dianggap sebagai kesalahan jenayah. Kesalahan tersebut bergantung pada konsep jenayah ketagihan apabila memiliki bahan terlarang tersebut. Cadangan menyahjenayah penagih Malaysia perlu memahami pergantungan konsep ancaman keselamatan dengan kesalahan jenayah penagihan dadah. Tanpa konsep kriminologi yang jelas berkaitan penyalahgunaan dadah yang menyalahi undang-undang, kelemahan perundangan tidak dapat menghalang ancaman keselamatan transnasional yang disebabkan oleh pengedar dan penyeludup dadah.

Abstract: We examine the latest proposals of new Malaysia's government to decriminalise drug addiction issues. From defence and security perspective, the authors cautioned Malaysia's hasty decision to decriminalise drug addicts when existing security measures to combat drug smuggling at the cross-border remained unresolved. In demonstrating the relations between illegal drug supplies in the Malaysian black market with the transnational drug syndicate, the authors focus historical existence of the Golden Triangle and the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) presence in the area during the Cold War. The CIA’s involvement in the drug triangle within complex nested security threats. It brought the Malaysian history of drugs and the introduction of capital punishment with the past relations of Malaya's communist insurgency with the northern Vietnam government and the Vietnam War. Given the current shift of the Southeast Asian tension involving the US-China power rivalry in the South China Sea, any current attempt to decriminalise dangerous addicted substances must take into past the historical geopolitical complexity of transnational and traditional security threats. Currently, the conceptualisation of drug addictions as national security threats relies upon existing capital punishment for drug abuse as a criminal offence. These offences relied heavily upon jurisprudence conceptualisation of addiction with possession of the abused substance. A proposal to decriminalise Malaysian addicts needs to understand the reliance of threats upon criminal offence concepts of the addictive substance. Thus, without criminological concepts of unlawful possession, legal loopholes cannot deter transnational security problems caused by drug traffickers and smugglers.

Keywords: The Golden Triangle, drugs smuggling in Southeast Asia, drugs threat, national security, United States of America Central Intelligence Agency.