Drug case:
Rage or racism
Australians' anger against Jakarta supported by government
leaders.
May 29, 2005
(Background) A drug smuggling case that has created anger across
Australia. A 27-year-old Australian woman was found guilty of
trying to bring nine pounds of marijuana into Bali and was
sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The reading of the verdict, to a packed courtroom in Bali, was
carried live on Australian television and radio.
The three judges who heard the case could have sentenced the
defendant, Schapelle Corby, to be executed, a fate met by many
foreigners convicted of drug offences in Indonesia and other
Southeast Asian countries.
Ms Corby claims the marijuana, which customs officials found in her
luggage when she landed in Denpassar last October, had been put
there by baggage handlers during her flight, which began in
Brisbane and transited through Sydney.
Reactions (excerpts):
New York Times
Southeast Asian countries have strict drug laws, and airport signs,
arrival cards and announcements by airlines, warn travellers about
the consequences of being caught with drugs.
Trials of foreigners on drug charges are routine, and the
imposition of death sentences for the convicted are not
exceptional.
Ms. Corby's supporters included the Australian government, which
paid part of her defence, leading to accusations that Australia was
interfering in the Indonesian judicial system in a way that
Australians would never tolerate another country doing in their own
country.
The Australian
Underlying the "hysteria" and "Indonesia-bashing," is a tinge of
racism, and a disdainful view of Indonesia as a country of corrupt
politicians and Islamic terrorists, said The Australian.
The Sydney Morning Herald
It said Prime Minister John Howard and opposition Labour party
leader Kim Beazley "are pandering to Australian public
opinion."
If the Indonesian public and officials acted in a similar manner
were an Indonesia on trial in Australia, Australians "would be
insulted and angry - no, outraged," the editorial said.
Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer.
He announced that the government would send lawyers to help Corby
with her appeal and was discussing a prisoner swap with Indonesia
that would allow Corby to serve her sentence in Australia.
Tim Lindsey, professor of Asian law, director of the Asian Law
Centre at the University of Melbourne. Sydney Morning Herald
Lindsey wrote that Australians' support for the high-profile
defendant is based on damaging double standards, in what would
otherwise be a relatively unremarkable drugs trial in a foreign
country.
It has now become the major national story in Australia and (she)
has become a martyr figureh wrote, adding:
"Popular reaction to the trial - supporting Schapelle Corby and
demonising Indonesia, for the most part - has become so extreme
that it is now a national political issue.
"This public pressure has pushed the Federal Government into
unprecedented intervention on behalf of an Australian
overseas..
"The support she has received appears far in excess of what has
been provided in the past to other citizens facing drugs charges
and the death penalty, including ethnic Asian Australians arrested
in Vietnam.
"The Government response reflects the popular hysteria in Australia
asserting Corby's innocence and condemning Indonesia: she is
obviously innocent and the Indonesian system is obviously pathetic;
their judicial system stinks; I will never travel to Bali again.
The sense of
aggressive certainty in these assertions is disturbing, for several
reasons.
"First, it is based on a conviction of Corby's innocence that
leaves no room for a judicial proceeding that will examine the
evidence and conceivably come up with a different view.
"Instead, it assumes the system must be at fault, and so
Indonesia's very different and emergent civil law judiciary has
been grossly misrepresented and demonised.
"Second, the popular pro-Corby position is so uncompromising and
emotive that it portrays any alternative view as the product of
malice or stupidity.
"..In the process, rationality begins to suffer; so does policy
and, in this case, our image in the region. The death penalty -
rejected in Australia decades ago - is a good example of
this.
"It is proper for Australia to oppose the death penalty overseas,
and in particular when it is imposed on Australian citizens, but we
now have a credibility problem in doing so in Indonesia.
"When Bali bombers Amrozi, Muhklas and Imam Samudra were sentenced
to death by the same court that is trying Corby, this was widely
celebrated here.
"Some Australians offered to pull the trigger or burn them alive,
and our Government indicating that execution was appropriate.
"In light of this, how can our Government now claim that death is a
barbaric punishment, as popular opinion has it, if it is imposed on
Corby or, as is more likely, the Bali nine?
"The double standard on the death penalty feeds South-East Asian
anxieties about neo-colonial, arrogant and racist attitudes in
Australia and perceptions that we are the insular and xenophobic
white tribe of Asia.
"There is a lesson to be learnt from this: what happens in
Indonesia directly affects Australians. Whether it is war,
terrorism, trials or tsunamis, Australians will always be part of
what happens to our near north.
"It is time we focused more on building links, on repairing the
catastrophic decline in Indonesian studies and language skills in
Australia and engaging, rather than demonising and shunning, a
neighbour, just because it has an Australian on trial."
May 29, 2005
Above from littlespeck.com
