Pubdate: Tue, 22 Nov 2005
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2005 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Author: Tony Parkinson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Death+Penalty (Death Penalty)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

A TIME FOR MEASURED DIPLOMACY

SINGAPORE carries out its executions like clockwork. Death by hanging
happens at Changi prison on Fridays at dawn.

Singapore says it uses the gallows "sparingly and only for the most
heinous crimes". The facts say otherwise. Singapore has executed at
least 400 offenders in the past 15 years, one of the highest per
capita rates of capital punishment anywhere in the world. Mostly, the
condemned have been small-time drug traffickers, many of them foreigners.

In 10 days, Singapore intends to hang 25-year-old Melbourne man Nguyen
Tuong Van after he was convicted for possessing a commercial quantity
of heroin. Justifiably, many Australians are appalled.

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, is urging the Howard
Government to lodge a formal diplomatic protest. The Australian
Democrats want economic sanctions if the hanging proceeds. On radio
and on the letters pages there have been angry calls for boycotts of
Singapore-owned businesses, including Optus, Singapore Airlines and
TRU.

I understand, and support, the intense public opposition to capital
punishment.

Yet does Singapore's stubborn insistence on carrying through with this
execution warrant some of the more strident demands for the Howard
Government to junk relations with a small but important neighbour?

Not if there is any consistency of purpose and principle to our
foreign policy.

There are more than 80 nations across the world that still carry the
death penalty on their books, and many, sadly, use it regularly.
Alongside Singapore, these nations include China, the United States,
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Yet rarely has opposition in Australia to capital punishment intruded
on these relationships. Indeed, it has been established practice to
quarantine broader relations from disputes over criminal justice.

For all the heartbreaking circumstances surrounding the case of
Nguyen, the same rule must apply this time. Nguyen broke the laws of
Singapore. His punishment is in accordance with those laws.

I happen to think those laws are manifestly wrong, for a multitude of
reasons.

First, the sheer barbarity of the practice. Death by hanging is
gruesome enough but it is the cold ruthlessness of the process in
Singapore that magnifies the horror.

Nguyen's bewildered and desperate mother, Kim, has been given no
solace. Officials in Singapore have refused her request to meet
ministers. She will be allowed to see her son before his execution but
only from behind a thick pane of glass.

Second, the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking in Singapore
produces arbitrary and disproportionate outcomes. It gives the
judiciary no latitude to weigh up the circumstances, the mitigating
factors.

Finally, at a practical level, Singapore's hardline approach is not
delivering demonstrable gains. For all the claims by the authorities
of a decline in the number of drug abusers, addiction continues to be
a problem, particularly among the impoverished, and unemployed. There
is no convincing evidence that the death penalty in any way deters the
Mr Bigs of the Asian heroin syndicates.

These are among compelling reasons for the Australian Government to
protest indignantly over a penalty that is obnoxious, illiberal and
just plain wrong. But Labor wants to up the ante with tougher
diplomatic action. Does this make sense?

Here, the experience of the Hawke government's bitter clash with
Malaysia in the 1980s is salutary. When Australia protested at the
execution of two young Australians accused and convicted of
drug-running, it served only to harden the arteries of Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad, who saw it as unwelcome foreign interference. This
suggests public campaigning, or political heavying, by Australia can
often produce the opposite to the intended effect. Although Canberra
might be seeking to protect the interests of Australians abroad, with
humanitarian purposes in mind, appeals for clemency for citizens
convicted of capital crimes in other jurisdictions in South-East Asia
can be interpreted as crass intervention.

This can create a dilemma of its own. If Singapore carries out an
execution despite Australian protests, it risks damaging relations. If
it defers to Australian sensitivities, Singaporeans will wonder
whether a more lenient standard applies to foreigners.

Singapore has executed drug offenders from Malaysia, Hong Kong,
Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana, the Netherlands, Britain and Portugal. From
that perspective, why, then, should an Australian citizen, or an
Australian government, believe themselves entitled to special pleadings?

Rudd favours a more barnstorming strategy. But would he argue the same
if, for example, any of the Bali Nine were to be sentenced to death in
Indonesia? Would he risk compromising one of our most crucial
relationships in the region to make a point about the failings of
Indonesian justice?

And what about China? Would he risk putting that relationship in hock
if Beijing chose to ignore Australian protests over the execution of
political prisoners? This is not hypothetical. China does this routinely.

If the answer to these questions is no, it would surely be incongruous
to demand a punitive approach towards tiny Singapore.

Principled and passionate protest by Australians against the death
penalty is important. Singapore may yet listen. But excitable language
about diplomatic or economic retribution smacks of populist posturing.
It could do more harm than good.

Tony Parkinson is a senior columnist. 
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