‘Shoot-on-sight’ leaves 55 dead

Indonesia launches harsh war on drugs to clear streets of abusers

JAKARTA: Raid, shoot, kill and repeat. Indonesia is replicating the harsh and unprecedented war on drugs launched by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in a bid ar to on clamp drugs down on widespread drug cytrafficking.

As the authorities have vented POST/ their ASIA frustration at the often lenient punishment slapped on drug kingpins, who usually end up simply splashing out their money to enjoy luxurious lifestyles while in prison, the shoot-on-sight policy may have been adopted as a shortcut to clear the streets of the archipelago of drug abusers.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and National Police chief General Tito Karnavian have previously stated warnings about replicating Duterte’s methods, and this may be coming to pass.

London-based Amnesty International has revealed that a total of 55 Indonesian and foreign nationals were killed without judicial process between January and August this year, having been shot by law enforcement agencies.

While the organisation does not provide last year’s number for comparison, media reports indicate fewer than five were killed in 2016.

This year’s number has yet to reach the level of extrajudicial killings of drug dealers under Duterte in the Philippines, where 8,000 drug dealers have been killed in the past 11 months, including 2,500 who died in shoot-outs during raids.

Amid the mounting death toll, Jokowi repeated his order on July 21 for law enforcement personnel to gun down drug dealers without compunction, a call many activists fear will intensify the killings and provide blanket impunity for officers to simply to shoot to kill, rather than in self-defence as mandated by the law.

“After Jokowi’s order, eight more people (suspected drug dealers) have been summarily killed,” Amnesty International Indonesia researcher Bramantya Basuki said recently.

“The latest incident is the killing of a drug dealer in Surabaya, East Java last Friday.”

The Surabaya shooting by National Narcotics Agency (BNN) personnel took place just five days after members of the same institution shot dead Malaysian drug dealer Cheng Kheng Hoe in Kalimantan last Sunday. — The Jakarta Post/ Asia News Network