Dec 1, 2005
The Straits Times
CANBERRA - AUSTRALIAN Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday
described as 'pointless' possible work bans by transport workers in
protest against the imminent hanging in Singapore of Australian
drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van.
He was speaking before Transport Workers Union (TWU) leaders held a
meeting to decide whether to take action against Singapore Airlines
(SIA) in retaliation against the scheduled execution in Changi
prison tomorrow of the 25-year-old Melbourne man.
The Sydney Morning Herald quoted a spokesman for the New South
Wales branch of the TWU, which represents airport refuellers and
baggage handlers, as saying: 'The federal committee of management
is meeting today in Melbourne to discuss a whole gambit of possible
options.
'One of those possible options is a possible action of some sort
against Singapore Airlines.'
The newspaper said it understood this could include restrictions on
baggage handling and refuelling.
Mr Downer said action by the TWU would achieve nothing.
'It's a pointless thing to do,' he told Southern Cross
Broadcasting.
'I think they should, you know, get on with their job and protect
the interests of their members as the unions do but not start
straying into international politics.
'I don't think it's going to be productive at all.
'I can absolutely assure you it will do nothing to help Van
Nguyen.'
Mr Downer repeated that the Australian public opposed the execution
but he believed it would now proceed.
'I think the general mood of the Australian public is that poor old
Van Nguyen did something terribly wrong but we're very sorry that
it's going to end with him being hanged,' he said.
Supporters of Nguyen have also conceded there was virtually no
chance of obtaining a reprieve for the condemned man, who is
scheduled to go to the gallows at dawn tomorrow.
'I've never really believed that the Singapore government, which
prides itself on its strength, on not changing its mind, was ever
going to change the decision and provide clemency as a result of
public pressure,' former prime minister Malcolm Fraser told public
radio.
South Australian Premier Mike Rann, in the meantime, has added his
voice to those who have warned anti-capital punishment activists
against 'glamorising' a convicted heroin dealer.
Mr Rann, who reaffirmed his opposition to capital punishment,
labelled calls for a minute's silence across Australia to mark the
execution as 'deeply offensive' to war veterans.
Like many others, he said Nguyen knew the risks he was running when
he attempted to smuggle drugs through Singapore.
'People know what the laws are in Singapore and they take the
risks, they choose to play a form of Russian roulette,' Mr Rann
told reporters.
Opinion polls show many people still support capital punishment
although Australia outlawed the death penalty decades ago, Reuters
news agency reported yesterday.
It cited the headline of a letter published in the Sydney Morning
Herald newspaper on Tuesday: 'Friday is the time to remember
heroin's victims.'
'My heart goes out to Nguyen's parents...But get real Australia.
This man, like all drug dealers, was prepared to trade the lives
and future of a thousand of our children for a few miserable
dollars,' G. Ward wrote in a letter.
A cartoon in Sydney's Daily Telegraph yesterday depicted a heroin
addict, on the street in front of scores of needles, saying: 'What
a shame he's being executed.'
The Telegraph has covered the Nguyen story extensively but it has
consistently made the point that Nguyen is a drug smuggler.
'The suggestion that the nation should observe a minute's silence
is both morbid and offensive,' the Daily Telegraph said in an
editorial yesterday.
Those pleading for clemency for Nguyen held a mass and prayer vigil
in St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Sydney last night.
'Two wrongs don't make a right. Taking a human life is not a way of
solving a problem,' the chancellor of the Sydney Archdiocese,
Father John Usher, was quoted as saying.
Vigils organised by Catholic and Anglican cathedrals were also due
to be held in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, according to
Reuters.
In earlier developments, Australia's Greens party on Tuesday called
for a minute's silence at 9am Sydney time tomorrow to mark the
execution while the Senate passed a motion opposing state
executions.
Nguyen, 25, who had admitted acting as a drug courier, was
sentenced to death last year after being found guilty of
trafficking in 396g of heroin, found on him at Changi Airport in
December 2002.
That amount works out to 26,000 doses on the street.
