This morning, 29 April 2015, Australian born Asians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in Indonesia for heroin trafficking. They were the ringleaders of the “Bali 9”, arrested in 2005.
In recent times, their imminent executions have got enormous attention in the Australian mass media and thus by politicians. There has been so much cant and posturing. “Australia” has supposedly been outraged by their death sentences. Really?
I would have preferred that they had not been executed. They were not so evil as to merit it, but nor were they victims. Punishment should match the crime and I do think execution was more than enough.
Given that had gone to Indonesia and, knowing the risk, deliberately disobeyed the well-publicised laws, the Indonesians were not going to say, “well, you are not such bad men, so we will not execute you”. No.
Just maybe, quiet diplomacy might have gotten the sentences commuted. Instead there was this very public objecting by journalists and politicians. There was no way the Indonesians were going to give in to that.
I saw Chan, on television, say something like, “eight out of ten get through; you think you are going to be one of the eight”. They made a calculation, took a risk and now have borne the consequences.
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