The
bloc has rarely discussed the death penalty. It is time it did.
The blowback over Indonesia’s
latest decision to execute foreigners – including a four Nigerians, two
Australians, and a Brazilian – will taint the presidency of Joko Widodo and
cast a dim light over his factional rival Megawati Sukarnoputri, chair of the
ruling PDI-P.
The pair are not on good terms, with
speculation of a power struggle, and Megawati is prone to reminding Widodo that
she is in charge. Hardly a healthy state of affairs for a government bent on
handing out execution orders for drug offenses.
Nigeria proved itself diplomatically
inept when it came to looking after its own. As for Brazil and Australia, they have
every right to be angry.
Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte was shot
for smuggling 6 kg of cocaine into Indonesia hidden inside surfboards – after
he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic,
delusional and with psychotic tendencies.
Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukamara had spent 10 years behind bars and by Indonesia’s own reckoning had been
fully rehabilitated, the job of a prison system. That apparently counted for
nothing.
The latest killings were not the
first, and there are more to come. As international anger continues to mount
spare a thought for the many foreigners who are facing a similar fate in
Southeast Asian prisons, regardless of their crimes.
Australia is long on experience on
this score. Van Nguyen was a sticking point for the Singaporeans who executed
him in 2005 for trafficking heroin.
By all accounts Nguyen was a solid student bullied
into becoming a drug mule by thugs in Australia, upset by debts accumulated by
his twin brother. Nguyen was led to believe that leniency would be shown if he
told all. And he did.
Singapore is rarely celebrated for
having much heart. It has a clemency rate of about one percent. Still, the
authorities let Nguyen’s Mum give him a big hug in their final minutes
together, while going cap in hand to Canberra with requests from the
government-owned Singapore Airlines for access to Australia’s
highly lucrative air route to the U.S. West Coast.
Prime Minister John Howard politely
declined.
Back in the 1980s, Mahathir Mohammad
reveled in the political theatrics he engineered after courts in Malaysia
sentenced Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers to death for drug running. Mahathir –
a medical doctor by trade – allowed the executions to proceed and would become
thoroughly miffed when Prime Minister Paul Keating later called him a recalcitrant.
This time around the Indonesians did
grant a last minute reprieve for a Filipino, Mary Jane Velosa, who had been
human trafficked into drug smuggling. That removed any lingering doubts about
the power of the presidency but she should not have been there in the first
place.
Too many nationalities have been represented
in the gallows of Southeast Asia.
Only Cambodia and the Philippines do
not have the death penalty, a topic that rarely rates a mention among the
several hundred families that control the 10 governments within ASEAN.
Their focus is on money and power,
and the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community
towards the end of this year, which will enhance both.
Laws are being harmonized to allow
for a significant shift in the 600 million people who live here. Crime
demographics, like human trafficking, will change, and the perpetrators will
increasingly be from neighboring countries where culture and punishments do
differ.
Being a witness to a state
sanctioned murder or, tragically worse, a botched one, is awful. I can vouch
for that. Illicit drugs have been an issue across the region for decades and
the death penalty clearly has not worked, is barbaric, and is not a punishment
befitting of the crime.
Australia’s offer to pay for the
upkeep of Chan and Sukamara while in prison was sensible and offered a
diplomatic way out for Indonesian authorities bent on their executions and
flexing their political muscle, as opposed to delivering a dignified justice.
Crime, punishment, and the gallows
need to be tackled by ASEAN as a bloc while it attempts to forge a closer,
regional community. Fail to do so and it risks alienating itself. It should be
mindful that foreigners are not responsible for their illegal drug trade, which
by Jakarta’s own reckoning, is flourishing.
Luke Hunt
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