Jan. 27
INDONESIA:
Poso executions to go ahead despite pleas for a stay
The Central Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office and local police will go ahead
with the execution of three Christian death row inmates, found guilty of
involvement in a series of murders in Poso several years ago, heedless of
mounting demands for a stay of execution.
Despite the intensive preparations, however, the prosecutors and police
declined to say when the execution of the 3 would be held.
"Just wait ... when the time comes you will know when they will be
executed. For the sake of maintaining security, we are not allowed to give
details about the timing (of the execution)," Central Sulawesi Police
spokesman Adj. Comr. Rais D. Adam told The Jakarta Post.
The prosecutor's office recently ordered 3 caskets.
Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu are now on death row
after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in December refused to grant them
clemency, which was their last resort in the legal process.
Meanwhile, a group rights activists and religious leaders, including
former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, have demanded a stay of
execution, saying they believed the three were not the masterminds of the
violence.
Gus Dur, also a former chairman of the nation's largest Islamic
organization, demanded the establishment of an independent fact-finding
team to uncover the truth behind the mass killings in Poso, including the
masterminds.
Tibo, one of the convicts, said Thursday he was ready to be executed, even
though he expressed concern as to why his life had to end in front of a
firing squad. "I'm ready to accept the verdict, but why do I have to die
this way?" he asked.
Tibo had previously given to the police the names of 16 other key people
involved in the killings; all of whom are still living as free men in
society.
Dominggus demanded that as soon as he was executed his body be sent to the
President as "proof" that he and his 2 comrades were the victims of
manipulation by other people in Poso.
"Me, Om (Uncle) Tibo and Marinus were not the masterminds of the violence.
We were just provoked, so our roles were merely as victims. If justice is
to be properly upheld, the intellectual actors behind the incidents have
to be punished as well," he asserted.
The three transmigrants, originally from East Nusa Tenggara, were given
death sentences by the Palu District Court in 2001. They were proven
guilty for having been involved in the Muslim-Christian bloodletting
between 2000 and 2001 in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
A peace deal was signed in December 2001, following talks facilitated by
then welfare minister Jusuf Kalla.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
AUSTRALIA/INDONESIA:
Death penalty not the answer to drug scourge
The fact that prosecutors in Bali have sought the death penalty for the
alleged Bali Nine ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan is grim
news not only for them but also the Australian Federal Police.
It is an outrage that any of the Bali Nine should be pleading for their
lives to an Indonesian court. The AFP, which effectively gave up the Bali
Nine to Indonesian police, will have blood on its hands if any of the Bali
Nine are executed. The AFP has attempted to justify its decision to
provide the Indonesian authorities with damning evidence about the 9
Australians on the basis that if they were not arrested in Bali, they
could not guarantee the drugs would not arrive in Australia. They also
cite international co-operation in the war against drugs.
This explanation is hopelessly misguided. Capital punishment has no
redeeming features. It is brutal and futile. It does not reduce crime. The
practice is so repugnant that Australia rightly refuses to extradite
foreigners to their country of origin if there is a meaningful risk they
will be executed. How can it possibly be justifiable to place Australians
in the hands of overseas authorities who are likely to execute them?
Further, the war against capital punishment is more pressing than halting
the importation of a finite amount of drugs.
Blame aside, the important issue now is if any of them are sentenced to
death, what can be done to ensure that none of them is executed? Their
best chance rests with the Australian Government, which needs to make
strong representations to the Indonesian authorities at the political
level (which will filter down to the courts) - hopefully they are already
well down this path.
In trying to convince the Indonesian Government to not execute any of the
Bali Nine, there are several matters that the Government needs to bear in
mind.
There are three basic ways to get people or institutions to do what you
want. Force is the crudest method but is obviously not an alternative, nor
are threats of tangible sanctions on Indonesia, such as limiting trade.
The 2nd method of persuasion is by legitimising one's position through the
weight of numbers. This is democracy at work. But again this is not an
option in the international arena.
The final method is the moral force of one's arguments.
To this end, Australia is hamstrung by the fact we are only now imploring
Indonesia to not apply the death penalty. We gave tacit support for their
decision to sentence to death some of the Bali bombers. Thus our
opposition to capital punishment will, at least initially, have all the
hallmarks of an expedient request as opposed to a principled moral stance.
Despite this, we must still make the strongest representations to save the
Bali Nine. This can only be done in an atmosphere of rational exchange
aimed at advancing both nations' interests.
Although common sense would indicate that executing drug traffickers would
deter people from selling drugs, wide-ranging empirical evidence
conclusively rebuts this proposition. Countries with capital punishment
don't have lower levels of serious crime and when countries abolish the
death penalty the crime rate does not increase. The greatest deterrent to
wrongdoing is not the size of the penalty but the perceived risk of
detection. Thus, it must be pointed out that Indonesian citizens are no
safer from drugs as a result of capital punishment.
Moreover, a fundamental sentencing principle is that the harshness of the
penalty should match the severity of the offence.
This is violated when the most severe form of punishment is imposed for
offences which do not constitute the most heinous forms of offending. Drug
trafficking is bad, but clearly crimes such as murder and homicide are far
more serious.
(source: Professor Mirko Bagaric is head of Deakin Law School; The
Advertiser)
