After months of what can only be described as a media circus, amid speculation, appeals, debates over human rights, and stories of supposedly reformed hardened criminals who got religion, Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have finally been executed, along with other convicted drug smugglers Zainl Abidin of Indonesia, Rodrigo Gularte of Brazil and Silvester Obikwe Nwolise, Okwuduli Oyatanze, Martin Anderson and Raheem Agbaje Salami of Nigeria.
About time. The Indonesian government screwed around for too long and should have pushed it through much sooner.
Shit, or get off the pot.
I don’t understand why so many people seem to have sympathy for two men who made the choice to attempt to smuggle 8kgs of heroin into Australia.
I don’t understand how people can focus only on these two men and not their mules, or the people addicted to heroin and other life-destroying drugs, or the other eight people who were sentenced to die alongside them (although Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines and Serge Atlaioui of France were given last-minute reprieves).
i can’t understand how people focus on the supposed corruption of Indonesia’s judicial system and the drugs offenses which are committed both inside the prisons and on the streets, and not the gravity of what these men did.
I can’t understand why these same people who claim to be so outraged aren’t petitioning equally hard for every prisoner on death row around the world.
Hah – those outraged people have the cheek to call those of us unsympathetic towards the drug smugglers hypocrites? Pot. Kettle. If you’re going to petition for one, petition for them all.
Frankly, the whole reaction from Australia and most of the world stinks. They only cared about these hardened criminals, these dealers of misery, these master manipulators, when it was confirmed they were to soon face the firing squad.
Hell, not even Chan and Sukumaran thought much of their situation until their ending was imminent.
That was their first mistake. They were complacent. I think they thought Indonesia didn’t have the balls and they’d get away with 20 years or so in prison before eventually managing to facilitate a release.
Obviously Australia didn’t give much of a shit either. In fact, the Australian Federal Police was the agency who dobbed the drug kingpins and their mules to the Indonesian government in the first place.
Yet, now that their demands have proved fruitless, Prime Minister Tony Abbot has recalled the country’s Ambassador in Indonesia in a fit of pique and Nick Xenophon, an independent senator, plans to lobby the Australian government to prevent information-sharing about criminals that may result in capital punishment – a call echoed by AFP deputy commissioner Michael Phelan, who admits to being primarily responsible for the decision to supply the information to the Indonesian authorities about Chan and Sukumaran’s operation.
It’s a classic case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Surely the AFP would have considered the fact the offenders could be sentenced to the death penalty, knowing Indonesia’s hard-line stance on drug smuggling?
Either way, it’s too late to claim remorse or to talk about ‘what if’s..’ and ‘what could we have done differently’s’ now.
Even more worrying though, is that effectively what the AFP and Xenophon are saying is,
“We’ll do our part to reduce the harms of drugs in society and minimise the ability of drug dealers to distribute these life-destroying substances…. except where accountability for their crimes may result in capital punishment. Then we’ll just look the other way and let then carry on until we can figure out another way to catch them.”
Does anyone else see the major flaw in that reasoning?
It’s creating an exemption to the rule and minimising the seriousness of major drug trafficking operations.
Now, the second mistake Abbott and the kingpins made – when confirmation came through that the death penalty was soon to be enforced, then (and only then) did they start lobbing in earnest for clemency.
What they did was turn the situation in to a world-wide media circus.
It seems to me that this was a strategic tactical move, with the aim of manipulating the government and judicial system into relenting and handing down a lighter sentence.
Unfortunately for them, it backfired. Abbott, the kingpins and the wider media painted the government into a corner all right, but the government chose to fight back instead of submit.
They found themselves challenged and so as a result were in the difficult position of sticking to their guns (pun not intended) and receiving condemnation, or backing down and looking weak and unable to enforce their own laws.
Personally, I can understand why the Indonesian government made the decision it did.
Better to be labelled cruel/inhumane/corrupt/hypocritical etc than be seen as weak and unwilling to carry out their own laws; to be seen as a soft touch who can be bullied into doing things the way other governments do; to set a precedent for other would be drug-dealing criminals who might then be more motivated to attempt to smuggle drugs through, into or out of Indonesia thinking that the risk of the death penalty is low enough that it is worth the gamble.
The setting of a precedent is the biggest and most dangerous side-effect of backing down. It sends a clear message:
“If your government, your lawyers and the world can be convinced to feel sorry for you and subsequently shriek long and loud enough in self-righteous indignation, we’ll relent and give you a lighter sentence regardless of the gravity and enormity of your offending.”
No government wants to send the message that they can be undermined by other countries and made to feel they can’t make and enforce their own laws.
We may not agree with those laws, but we don’t live in those countries, and frankly, we have our own problems with our own laws – like the soft approach to violent offenders and sexual predators.
In the majority of cases, they’re out in 15 years or less.
What kind of justice is that?
I’d like to see violent offenders and sexual predators lose a hand. Take away their weapons. See how keen they are to carry out future offences with their reduced effiacy and power.
If they do it again anyway, take the other hand.
(I realise sexual offenders also use their genitals as weapons but while you can castrate a man it is not so simple to carry out the equivalent consequence on a woman.)
Back to our drug kingpins and their many attempts to have their sentences lessened.
Of course they’d try, and you can’t fault them for that.
They supposedly reformed themselves in prison by being model prisoners and helping other inmates to learn skills and work together.
Certainly, it would not have ben a comfortable experience (compared to the relatively comfortable conditions New Zealand and Australian prisoners are afforded, anyway).
But the recurring pattern in various appeals, letters, petitions and acts was this – ploy after ploy after ploy, the latest (and most desperate) ploys being Chan marrying his partner and the allegation that a judge requested a bribe in exchange for a lesser sentence before the final decision was made to impose the death penalty.
It reminds me of something.
Have you seen The ShawShank Redemption (Who hasn’t?) or read the short story it’s based on, Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption?
Andy Dufresne plotted and planned all though hs incarceration and ultimately won the day with his successful escape and disappearance.
Every move was calculated and planned in advance.
He chipped away (literally and figuratively) at the system and the people he interacted with. He set it all up. He was patient and cunning.
Of course, his character was innocent.
Chan and Sukumaran were not.
But (and call me cynical) their methods were similar to Andy’s.
They slowly worked towards a goal (avoiding the implementation of the death penalty, hoping for a more favorable long prison term) by displaying exemplary behaviour, claiming to have found religion and to be reformed, taking up activities, and helping improve the skills, morale and behaviour of their fellow inmates as well as some of the prison conditions.
They hoped their history, their deeds, and testimonials from others would curry favour and sympathy from the judiciary system, and that external pressure from other governments and legal systems would do the rest.
(In fact, Chan was apparently confident up until as late as February this year that ultimately they’d get off the hook, with a former school mate claiming Chan text him saying “All good bro”, and “it’ll be alright.”)
Cocky, no?
Ultimately though, it didn’t work.
I think that refusing to sign the execution warrants, Chan marrying his girlfriend and the last-minute allegations of corruptions were the final, last-ditch, desperate options available to two men whose master plan had fallen though and were clutching at straws, having realised their mortality.
Maybe they really were reformed. Maybe they really were asked for a bribe.
But that doesn’t change the fact they knowingly committed a serious crime, for which they fully understood the consequences.
What is the point of any law if ultimately the offender can convince the judicial system they should be given an exemption and be freed or given a lesser sentence with the gentle admonition not to do it again?
Maybe some of those offenders won’t do it again under such a circumstance, but some of them will.
And it will motivate other people to offend knowing they can push and challenge existing law. If necessary, they can use the classic “But you let THEM off, why not me?! That’s not fair!!”
As I said above, it sets a dangerous precedent.
It’s sad for their family and friends, of course.
Certainly if one of my family members or a friend was enough of a fucking idiot to commit such a serious offense and experienced the same fate it would suck, but they would have made that choice.
Riddle Me This 