VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - BNN Head Commissioner General of Police Petrus Reinhard Golose held a bilateral meeting with the Agencia de Renovacion del Territorio (ART) Director Raul Delgado Guerrero to exchange experiences in handling illegal plants.

"ART is a Colombian government agency that has the main task of supporting the Colombian government's program to substitute illegal crops and encourage alternative development for farmers of coca and other prohibited crops," Golose noted in a written statement from National Narcotics Agency (BNN) received in Jakarta, Wednesday.

Colombian ART is in accordance with one of the four strategies of the Indonesian BNN in the war on drugs, namely the soft power approach, Golose remarked.

Golose explained that the soft power approach was conducted through an alternative empowerment program as an effort to empower communities in narcotics-prone areas.

Based on the ART data, he noted that currently, there are 234 thousand hectares of coca fields and 11 thousand hectares of marijuana fields in Colombia.

"ART is currently pushing for the completion of the Programa Nacional de Sustitución de Cultivos de uso Ilícito (National Program of Substitution of Illicit Crops/PNIS) that has helped more than one thousand farming families make the transition from illegal crops to legal crops," Golose remarked.

At a meeting held in Colombia, Monday (Sept 25), Indonesia and Colombia agreed to explore the forming of a letter of intent (LoI) or memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The LoI or MoU is the basis for further cooperation, especially in terms of exchanging data and information to increase the effectiveness of alternative empowerment programs in the two countries. (antaranews)