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Nov 27, 11:45 PM EST
Australian unionist backs call for trade sanctions against
Singapore to save condemned man
By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press Writer
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- The leader of Australia's trade union
movement said Monday that unionists stood ready to impose trade
sanctions against Singapore and urged the government to take
stronger steps to save the life of an Australian drug trafficker
who is to be hanged by the city-state on Friday.
But Australian Council of Trade Unions President Sharan Burrow said
the unions are unable to take unilateral action against Singapore
to save Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, without the support of the wider
community.
"There is no question that the death penalty is barbaric, that it
is a travesty of human rights, but I don't think that the union
movement, to be honest, can save this one," Burrow told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"We would stand ready to take action if the nation decided to up
the ante," she said, calling for a "a united front."
Singapore has rejected repeated clemency pleas - including from the
Australian government - for the Vietnam-born Australian, who was
arrested at Singapore's Changi Airport in 2002 en route from
Cambodia to Australia's southern city of Melbourne carrying 396
grams (14 ounces) of heroin.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said there is no hope of
having the death sentence commuted to a life term after his
Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong rebuffed his fifth appeal
for clemency over the weekend.
The prime minister said he warned Lee that the execution would
spawn lingering resentment between the close allies who have been
free trade partners since 2003.
The minor opposition Greens Party has urged Canberra to suspend
military ties with Singapore and consider trade sanctions against
Australia's largest trade and investment partner in Southeast
Asia.
Howard and senior ministers have already ruled out trade sanctions,
saying they would be economically harmful to both countries while
achieving nothing for Nguyen.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Monday rejected criticisms
that the government had moved too slowly and had not done enough to
save his life.
The government first raised Nguyen's case at ministerial level with
Singapore four days after his arrest in December 2002 and argued
for the charge to be downgraded to avoid a death sentence in
November 2003 before he even stood trial, Downer told
parliament.
Downer also sought the opinion of Cambridge University's Professor
of International Law James Crawford when government lawyers advised
that the death penalty could not be challenged in the International
Court of Justice without Singapore accepting the
intervention.
"The fact is that an enormous number of representations have been
made," Downer said.
Howard rejected opposition calls to send Downer and opposition
Labor Party foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd to Singapore to
make a final bipartisan plea for clemency.
"It's not going to achieve any purpose other than perhaps raise the
false expectation that something is going to change," Howard told
ABC radio.
