Chairman!

Members of the Executive Committee

Ladies and gentlemen!

First of all, on behalf of the police delegation to Vietnam, I would like to express sincere gratitude to the Conference Organizing Committee, Ministry of National Security Laos People's Police Academy Laos and related units of the host country had  prepared a positive style with all of delegations to attend this important conference.

Ladies and gentlemen!

On behalf of the organization board, I would like to make an overview on the police training models of ASEAN countries and international co-operational in education and training between ASEANPOL’s Police Universities/Academies to Prevent and Combat against Transnational Organized Crimes with four basic issues, including:

- Background of challenges and difficulties in respond to non-traditional crime

- Some police training models in the world and region

- Multilateral and bilateral relations of People’s Police Academy of Vietnam;

- Proposals of international co-operations

The tendency of globalization and the process of international integration have brought about sizable benefits to countries in the world, but also pose many new challenges and difficulties to law enforcement forces in general, and the police in countries in particular. The activities of cross-border organized criminals have become more and more complicated. They have expanded their scopes of activities, taking full advantage of the differences in the legal systems and the scientific and technological levels and experiences of the law enforcement organs of countries to commit offences and crimes. Therefore, the aftermaths of their actions are very serious, not only in a single country, but in many countries. Hence, it is a must to have closer and more effective cooperation among law enforcement forces, the core of which are the national police of countries all over the world. Over the past years, Vietnam has stepped up international cooperation in crime prevention and suppression within bilateral and multilateral frameworks, including ASEANPOL and INTERPOL.

Meanwhile, the lack of mutual understanding, the differences in customs or legislations, political regimes and cultures and languages as well are a big barrier which have a great influence to the effectiveness of international cooperation in preventing and combating crimes, especially non-traditional crimes. Therefore, every country has to cooperate with each other especially in terms of the human resource training.

At this conference, basing on the overview on police training models of many countries in the world, it’s hoped that we can come to an agreement about some important issues in order to enhance the capability of combating crimes in Asean region in general and non-traditional crimes in particular.

Ladies and gentlemen!

Due to different features of the law system and government apparatus, there are differences in structures and organization models of the countries. In most of the countries, the police force belongs to the state civil servant system in which the trade union plays an important role in protecting police officers’ own interests.

In some other countries, police is a part of the armed force. Therefore, the training system of each country offers several specific characteristics in terms of training candidates, recruitments, training contents and methods. However, whatever method applied, the main aim is to train professional and skillful police officers to meet the need of preventing and combating crimes to protect social order and safety. It’s said that there are 2 types of police training model namely policing education at universities/academies and policing education for training and professional skills.

More details of all of two models of policing education will be presented and introduced in contributive paper that I will send to Organized Committee in order to share all of you, including features/characteristics; functions, roles, and responsibilities; educational degree; and advantageous and disadvantageous issues.

Ladies and gentlemen!

As analyzed above, each police training model appears some strong points and the selection of each training model is based on the particular conditions, and also on material facilities and training requirements of each country. However, whatever model applied, the need to make international cooperation in Asean region becomes very clear and urgent when appearing non-traditional crimes with their serious threats.

Therefore I would like to suggest some proposals in the cooperation of police training in ASEAN region at this conference.

In some recent years, in parallel with the quick social and economic development, some non-traditional crimes have appeared and increased such as transnational crimes, foreign crimes, hi-tech crimes, environmental crimes, crimes on the sea.... International crime happens in many fields of life with a lot of sophisticated and cunning criminal tricks and techniques, criminals have taken advantage of the lack and loophole in legislations and state policies, social and economic management ... to commit crime. 

As a result, we strongly believed that the police academies and colleges in Asean countries should concentrate on making training cooperation in some particular fields in order to prevent and combat non-traditional crime:

- To prevent and combat terror crime: To organize and develop some training programs in the region and regularly organize conference to strengthening the capability of law enforcement agencies in dealing with this crime. We should establish an effective mechanism to exchange and share criminal information between law enforcement agencies in order to prevent and combat effectively the crime. We should enhance to ensure the excellent security in border areas, control exit and entry, improve air security, protect big international events, protect the heads of state and VIP; repress and blockade the financing for terrorism; prevention and stop biological, chemical, nuclear and radioactive terror. Also we should carry out effectively international treaties and conventions in connection with combating terror. Some specific co-operations are to organize studying courses in The Institute for Law Enforcement Administration (ILEA), Bangkok, Thailand and Australian Police Federal has set up a Law Enforcement Training Centre in Indonesia.

- To prevent and combat transnational crime:

In the trend of globalization and regionalization, criminal activities are diversified not limited in the border of a nation but multi-nations and relating to many regions in the world. Hence, the attempts of a nation may be not enough to confront with the crime and it is very necessary to enhance international cooperation of countries in Asean region as well as the whole world in order to combat effectively this crime. Currently, Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam have received the attention and funding from the Australian Federal Police to establish the Center for prevention of transnational crime set in the above countries.

- To prevent and combat environment crime

In parallel with the social and economic development, pollution and environmental deterioration have become a big problem of every country. The violation has influenced seriously to the health of humans and the existence of living things on the planet; on another hand, it influences seriously on the existence and stable development of every country. In the meantime, it is clear that there are more crimes occurring in the region as well as in the world with more sophisticated and cunning tricks.

- To prevent and combat international crime:

To improve international cooperation in enforcing law, exchanging and sharing criminal information, the special need is to establish and deploy police training programs in the region. Also, the need is to organize conferences to strengthen the capability of criminal detection, crime control and making criminal reports, some main crimes of the concern may include banking crime, financial crime.

- To prevent and combat crime in the sea

In this area, we should be focused on enhance international cooperation in enforcing law and sharing criminal information on piracy and armed ropes; to build up and deploy training programs for law enforcement agencies in relation to combating piracy; establishing an information centre to contact and distribute criminal information to ASEAN members and other counterparts.

- To prevent and combat high tech crimes

Today, there are many crimes taking advantage of high tech to commit crime such as cyber crime, private information stolen, fraudulence, bank stolen, telecommunication fees stolen and so on, in addition to using the internet to commit other crimes as well. Taking advantage of the internet, criminals can stay in this country but commit a crime in another country this causes a lot of losses for or threats to the economy, national security and defense of countries.

As a result, to improve the cooperation in combating crimes, every country needs to build up a feasible policy to protect information security; regularly and often organize conferences and training courses to prevent, detect, and prosecute high tech crimes and also cooperation in combating this crime.

- To prevent and combat money laundering  

Organizing conferences and training courses on combating money laundering, to suppress the financial supply for terrorism; to develop and take advantage of modern technology to prevent and combat new tricks of money laundering and financing for terror criminals; exchanging experiences and develop standard frameworks to prevent and combat money laundering; provide finance and necessary equipment for financial information managers and providers; training for the leaders of banks, judges, prosecutors and investigators to identify and how to prevent effectively such crimes.

- To prevent and combat human trafficking: To build up training programs on human trafficking in the region in order to improve the ability to deal and investigate the crime, how to report on human trafficking; to develop education programs to support for human trafficking victims and also methods to protect them after coming back. Enhancing and strengthening the cooperation of law enforcement agencies in the region to prevent and combat this crime. To connect, cooperate, and suggest with ARTIP (Asian Region Trafficking In Person) to establish and develop some of suitable workshops or joint conferences in relate to combat against trafficking in persons for police universities/academies in Asean region.

- To prevent and combat transnational narcotic trafficking

ASEAN is a big region with some countries bordering with the “Golden Triangle” that is one of the world biggest illicit opium-producing areas. As a result, ASEAN countries have become an ideal area for criminals to commit opium trafficking. Opium is transported from countries in the Golden Triangle to other countries in the region and then to consuming destinations. Therefore, it is necessary to develop training programs and organize conferences on counter-narcotic trafficking, enhancing to exchange information on new serious narcotic crimes and improve cooperation with Asean dialogue countries, regional and the world organizations that concern to prevent and combat narcotic crime.

Such above mentions can be taken cooperation by different methods that can be in exchanging lecturers, students, information, learning materials used for the training; the cooperation in enhancing policing skills for police lecturers and students in police colleges. Recently years, the People’s Police Academy has singed 12 memorandums of cooperation with countries in the world in which 3 are with the Lao National Security Academy, the Cambodia Royal Police Academy and the Thailand Royal Police Cadet Academy...

Over last years, Asean countries have got a lot of support from the police of ASEANAPOL dialogue countries such as China, Australia, and South Korea, New Zealand in training police officers, and supporting policing equipment. A lot of police training courses in the regions were supported by dialogue countries.

In order to improve the police training cooperation in the challenges of non-traditional crimes, we would like to make some proposals:

1- At this conference, we also propose pleasurably with Chairman, members of the Executive Committee and one of our delegations will run for election to Host Nation for the third Policing Education Cooperation between Aseanpol’s members in the next year. Based on this activity will assist every police academy and college of Asean countries have opportunity to share and exchange their experiences.

2- In our regions are existing 2 police training models. Each model appears many strong points but also weak points. We propose every country will have multilateral and bilateral exchange in order to perfect each model. Initially, we should concentrate on short-term courses and exchange trainees between police universities/academies in relate to one of nine above topics that I also presented and introduced before.

As you know, particularly on the model of bilateral cooperation between the police and the annual Vietnam and Cambodia Royal Guard, National Police Laos today we are still maintaining stability training model with short-and long-term with university degrees, postgraduate and advanced training. Besides, we hope that the Royal Thailand Police in general and the Royal Police Academy of Thailand will be continued to maintain and develop models of exchange students between Vietnam and the Royal Thailand Police Academy in the future.

3- Encouraging police academies/colleges in the regions to sign memorandum on police training and carrying out the exchange of lecturers and students between Asean police academies or colleges. In the future, we consider that Asean police colleges and academies should sign memorandum to recognize qualification of each country in order to exchange education. In this regard, it should have the interest and cooperation from the area of the Institute / School Police of some developed countries in the region such as Singapore Police, Royal Thai Police, and Malaysia Police and so on.

4. Through the Vietnamese People’s Police Academy in education and training in recent years, each course at the PPA must be covered and certificated with ‘standard criteria’ after our students graduate. There are seven basic points, including policing professional knowledge, moral attitudes with their nation and citizen, English level with TOEFL’s score band at 450-500, information technology’s skill, shooting level, martial art’s skills, and driving skills.

5- To encourage to establish police training centers of ASEANAPOL in years to come in order to organize the training for the police in the regional countries on preventing and combating non-traditional crime. We are welcome the support from dialogue countries to establish such centers in ASEAN countries.

6- To approve ASEANAPOL Secretariat, INTERPOL and ASEANAPOL in every country in the region to provide and distribute information in relate to all of non-traditional crime and also transnational organized crimes for police academies and colleges in order to train police officers to respond these challenges.

Ladies and gentlemen!

All above are some expecting fields of police training cooperation in ASEAN region in the period of increasing non-traditional crime which we strongly believe we need to take serious attention in the soon years.  In order to bring the cooperation into practice, each country in the region needs to priorities training cooperation in some specific crimes as mentioned above. From this conference, we hope that this can be a very useful forum and get generous support from all of you in order that it is going to continue and implement by each country in the region with annual agenda. The main concern of each conference will depend on the decision of host country but the core issue is to enhance the international police training cooperation to combat effectively crimes for “the peace, prosperity and thriving of an Asean”.

Thank you very much!

Presenter: Major-general, Prof, Nguyen Xuan Yem, PhD

President of the People’s Police Academy 
The Ministry of Public Security of The Socialist Republic of Vietnam