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Bali nine executions highlight Australia's hypocrisy on the death penalty
Melbourne Age - May 4, 2015
Australia is right to raise an objection – and right to exercise diplomatic protection over Australians in trouble abroad. Both Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, typically, unanimously, expressed their outrage. We even withdrew our ambassador to Indonesia in protest.
But if only Australia's outrage at the death penalty (that is, execution after due process) was principled and consistent, that is, it extended to our friends and allied nations like the United States, which executed 35 people last year alone.
And if only Australia's outrage at the death penalty was directed at Indonesia's execution of West Papuans without due process. Hundreds of thousands of West Papuans have been murdered by Indonesia's security services. Without the benefit of legal defence or their day in court, West Papuans are killed on mere suspicion or, worse, for simply expressing a political opinion.
Headlines about the execution of the Bali nine pair screamed that Jokowi has blood on his hands – but we only care if it's Australian blood. No one seems to care when it's our Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel friends and Anzac allies just 300 kilometres north of our shores.
If we, as Australians, are opposed to the death penalty, shouldn't we also be outraged about the fact that Australia is accused of providing financial, operational and forensic assistance to Indonesian "death squads" in West Papua As the ABC has reported, an elite counter-terrorism unit called Detachment 88, funded and equipped by Australia, has been involved in tortures and killings in West Papua as part of operations by the Indonesian authorities to stamp out the West Papuan independence movement and assassinate its leaders.
The simple fact is: we are against the death penalty in Indonesia when it's applied to our citizens with due process. We will even recall our ambassador in protest to make sure voters at home know this and see that objection. But we aren't against Indonesians killing West Papuans without any due process. In fact, we will help Indonesia to kill them by providing training and support to their "death squads" – and our ambassador will be celebrated in Jakarta for it. At least, when he is allowed to go back.
If we, as Australians, are so outraged about the death penalty, shouldn't we be conducting an inquiry about the role of our own police in tipping off Indonesian authorities about the Bali nine, when they were fully aware of the consequences under Indonesian law, as one AFP police chiefs admitted in a 2006 interview.
And if we, as Australians, were really against the death penalty and actually cared about governments putting people to death – in Indonesia or elsewhere – we would oppose it, whether it was with due process or (worse) without it. And we certainly wouldn't let our police or our overseas aid budget support it.
[Jennifer Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer.]
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