Too Kind For Its Own Good

In a country not renowned for its counterculture, the Swiss city of Lausanne is an enclave of cool. Roller-bladers fizz through its parks, students and locals with time to talk and money to spend fill the cafés and clubs, posters tell of a vibrant arts scene. But up near the Old Town, in the shadow of the gothic St. Laurent Church, the tolerance and discreet charm of the Lausannois has been stretched to the snapping point lately by scores of African asylum seekers peddling cocaine on its ancient, narrow streets.

St. Laurent’s social aid and detox clinics show that the district and drugs are no strangers. But for everyone, the place has been getting scary. “Day and night the dealers were out on the streets in force, fighting with each other for turf and customers, being aggressive to passers-by,” says Jean-Pierre Clavien, a local shopkeeper. “They created fear and insecurity in the neighborhood.” Last week all that aggression culminated in the death of one dealer — an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone — who was stabbed in the liver, apparently after giving chase to a buyer who had run off without paying for his coke.

Addicts, meanwhile, fear for their own safety, says Jean-Pierre Marti, founder of the Group, a support network for 80 former and recovering addicts. “They are assaulted by one dealer after another. When you are trying to come off drugs and stay clean, it’s a terrible pressure.” So terrible, in fact, the Group took the extraordinary decision to seek police protection. “I never thought I’d be asking for police to intervene,” says Jorge, a fellow member, “but at this point I see them as good guys.”

In January, after talks with the Group and local shopkeepers, represented by Clavien, Lausanne’s police department launched Operation Alpha, and relief for St. Laurent now stalks the streets in the shape of Patrick Martin. In black combat gear and bullet proof vests, touting an array of dissuasive weaponry, Martin and his six colleagues of the Alpha Squad are a no-nonsense message to the cocaine dealers, a comfort to the locals and, in the end, probably whistling in the wind. “They aim for visibility,” says Christian Séchaud, of the Lausanne police, and to scare dealers off the streets, albeit temporarily. Arrest, he says, is not an option because the cocaine dealers — the vast majority of them in this part of town are West African asylum seekers — are “untouchable.” For a start, drug use is not illegal in Switzerland, and possession of .2 grams or less of cocaine doesn’t warrant arrest. Also, Swiss law treats seriously its obligations not to repatriate asylum seekers who claim their lives would be in danger in their home countries. “When these guys get here, they already know how the system works and how to pull the strings,” agent Martin says. Even when police do swoop — they intercepted 1,175 African dealers last year, compared with 581 in 2000 — “they’re only out of circulation for a few hours,” Séchaud says. “In any case, these guys are not deterred by the idea of imprisonment. For them, a stay in a Swiss prison is like a Club Med holiday.”

Many European countries are now drafting softer laws on softer drugs and squaring up to the social implications of criminalizing the harder ones. It’s an agenda Switzerland has been pioneering for years: a government-supervised heroin-prescription program in 13 cities and one prison has shown dramatic improvements in the crime rates, social inclusion and health of users. A law allowing the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana is awaiting final approval by Parliament, probably next year. In Lausanne as a result, turf wars among the city’s heroin dealers — most of them refugees from Albania and the former Yugoslavia — are rare and the city is developing an Amsterdamish attitude to dope.

Martin’s job then is to police a line that lies somewhere between the undesirable and the unenforceable. He and the rest of the Alpha Squad are relentless and polite, though the African dealers claim they are being targeted on account of their color. “I understand that they feel this way, but we’re just doing our job,” Martin says. Some in St. Laurent think the effects are cosmetic. “The dealers are like a swarm of flies — they disappear when the police come, only to reappear a few hours later, bothering people and scaring the hell out of us,” says a local resident. Others in the area, including Marti and fellow members of the Group, are more inclined to agree with the passing teen who makes a beeline for Martin, gives him a thumbs-up and says, “You guys are our heroes.”