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SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
OCT 16th
73
HK influence
may change operation of Interpol
HKK 19/3
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The working structure of Interpol - the world-wide annual conference of policemen may be changed because of the role Hongkong's delegation played at this year's meeting at Geneva.
Although delegates from the Royal Hongkong Police Force have no vote at the police parliament, they certainly have a voice. And this voice was heard loudly and clearly at the meeting last month, the chief of the CIB, Mr Jack Lees, said yesterday.
He was one of three Hongkong delegates to the conference, along with our next Police Commissioner, Mr Brian Slevin. and Commissioner of Narcotics, Mr Norman Rolph.
Because the Hongkong force is a colonial police establishment, they went to the conference on the coat tails of Britain, without a vote.
But Hongkong's three delegates were approached for advice and consultations by many other members.
And in three particular areas, Hongkong policemen were regarded as among the world's experts: combating drugs. counterfeiting and the trade in women for purposes of vide.
One concrete suggestion made by the Hongkong delegates may be adopted; and could turn into a major hurdle for the international bunch of criminals who live on the proceeds of the world's filthiest trade- drug trafficking.
This would be the strict control of international traffic in a normally harmless chemical compound called acetic anhydride. It is a liquid which, in itself, cannot do any harm.
But it is the chemical used by the paid chemists of the „"derworld to manufacture deadly heroin from morphine.
Hongkong has been fighting for a long time to give this chemical substance a bad name. At last, at the Interpol conference, they may have made some headway.
According to Mr Lees, the Hongkong authorities have been "whittling away for years" at many people, including some in America, to get acetic anhydride banned at an international trade level unless it was registered specifically under its own name so importing countries could know what they were receiving.
The chemical passes into Hongkong, and other countries, under the label of “industrial chemicals."
Hongkong would like to see it branded as exactly what it is, so they know where it is coming from and to whom it is going.
On the domestic front, the Hongkong police would like to see the Government pass a law making it an offence to possess acetic anhydride without a specific licence to do so.
True, they admit, heroin can be made from morphine without the substance.
But it is a far more dangerous process and the greedy chemists of the underworld laboratories would be reluctant to tamper with the dangerous substitutes which can easily and unpre dictably explode.
"We would like to monitor the movements of acetic anhydride from country to country," Mr Lees said yesterday.
"There are hundreds of thousands of tons of it used legally throughout the world every year, but in Hongkong, most of it is used in the illegal manufacture of heroin."
"We can't open and sniff every tin of industrial chemical that comes into Hongkong," he added.
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Mr Lees said the police chiefs of the world recognised that Hongkong had many problems not necessarily of our own making - in which thị Colony had managed to make spectacular in roads into the criminal world.
"We have successes in many fields,” he said.
"Our views were consequently given much attentive consideration, especially in connection with narcotics.”
In connection with aircraft hijacking. Mr Lees stayed tightlipped about exactly what Interpol had discussed. But he said policemen from around the world agreed they would like all countries to sign international convertions in regard to hijacked aircraft.
"The point is, that we are mere policemen,” he said. 'We keep the laws. We do not make them. The governments of the world decide policy."
For Hongkong, he said, the future in Interpol remained rosy. The Colony's voice was a respected one in the international police parliament, one which was listened to with attention.
Americans. Europeans and our neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia were all united in recognising the success with which Hongkong had dealt with its criminal problems.
In an organisation of 117 countries and three British colonial police forces, it was astonishing that Hongkong had the influence to talk and to be listened to.
But the three man delegation talked softly, although in many instances it carried a big stick.
At future Interpol conferences, more work will be done in committees, where the voice of Hongkong's policemen may gain increased cooperation and problems can be studied in depth with obviously better results.
If the world congress of policemen splits into committee sessions, the Colony's representatives will be able to be heard with more authority on such topics as drugs, smuggling and counterfeiting.
And then, there may be more action from other countries in the area to help Hongkong solve the problems which we import from them.
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