Hun Manet Says Army Has a Drug Problem, Pushes for Strict Measures

Army commander Hun Manet said the military will have low tolerance for repeat drug users, a rare acknowledgement of drug use in the armed forces.

Hun Manet posted a video to this Facebook page on July 19 where he acknowledged that some soldiers in the Cambodian Army were addicted to drugs and that leadership had been lenient with personnel leading to repeated use of drugs.

“Now for the army, I ask for very strict discipline. When there is a problem, we must cut out the problem immediately. … In some units, they are tolerating it too many times,” he said in the video.  “When there are cases, they tolerate them, send them for rehabilitation and when they return, they are still using it,” Manet said.

The admission is a rare insight into the internal issues of the Cambodian military, which is otherwise very opaque. A public anti-drug campaign over the last five and half years has been used by the government to score political points by arresting, detaining and imprisoning tens of thousands of people.

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