Nothing cruel about quick execution of drug dealers

IS IT just me? Am I a cold, uncompassionate person? Why is it that images of drug traffickers being gunned down in the middle of the night fail to move me?

A few weeks ago, when the world was up in arms because a number of ruthless drug kingpins were to be executed by firing squad, I was unmoved.

But lack of emotion changed to anger when, more recently, the mother of one of them wrote a “heart-wrenching” open letter to Indonesia’s president, accusing him of humiliating the drug trafficker’s family and ignoring repeated pleas for mercy.

Raji Sukumaran wrote: “Think for a second, one of your children is tied to a post, and men are lined up in front of them and the fear he would have felt, and then your child is shot through the heart.”

My response to that is: “Think for a second of the anguish your son inflicted on thousands, probably millions, of parents around the world. Think of the fear, the terror those parents feel when they learn that their precious child has become addicted to heroin.

“Think, Mrs Sukumaran, of finding your child comatose – or, worse still, dead – with a heroin needle sticking out of a vein.

“Think of parents who have lost not one, but two, sons to the evil that is heroin. Think also of addicts who live (but hardly) to tell the tale of battling with addiction, taking physical disabilities earned along the way to the grave with them.

When Myuran Sukumaran faced the firing squad, blindfolded to save him from seeing his executioners, did he spare a single thought for how many lives he had ruined while making vast amounts of money plying his illegal and immoral trade?

Did he think for a minute that there are no blindfolds for the thousands of parents who have stumbled upon their child’s lifeless body, just another number in the drug addiction game?

I doubt it. Sukumaran and the others knew what they were doing when they started peddling heroin. Yes, becoming an addict is a life choice, but if evil purveyors of deadly drugs abided by consciences they obviously do not have there wouldn’t be so much heroin (or other deadly drugs) in the world.

These kingpins knew all about a death penalty they chose to ignore.

Despite this, after the executions Australia withdrew its ambassador to Jakarta in protest at what it called the “cruel and unnecessary executions of the pair (fellow Australian Andrew Chan was also executed) who were ringleaders in a plot to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia”.

I cannot believe that “cruel and unnecessary” can be used in the same sentence as “ringleaders in a plot to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia”.

Therein lies the crux of the matter. The executions were not cruel or unnecessary. These were people who showed no respect for Indonesia’s laws. These were people found guilty of being ringleaders of a heroin smuggling chain.

Whether they had reformed in jail (a surefire, excuse the pun, way to try to evade the death sentence) is not an excuse.

Reformed or not, these were evil people who deserved to die a far more lingering death than a relatively quick shot to the heart.