Jakarta won’t be ‘threatened’ by Australia

Bilateral ties at risk if drug smugglers killed

SYDNEY: Australian prime minister Tony Abbott yesterday appealed to Indonesia to spare the lives of two Australian drug smugglers set to be executed by firing squad, while warning of consequences for bilateral ties if his government’s repeated bids for clemency are ignored.

“Let’s hope that Indonesia has realised ... its own best interests are served by not going ahead with these executions,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Brisbane, delivering what local media calling his toughest rhetoric yet on the issue.

He cautioned that if the death sentences handed down in 2006 to the two Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are carried out, it would have a chilling effect on bilateral relations.

“We will be letting Indonesia know in absolutely unambiguous terms that we feel grievously let down,” he said without elaborating on what measures Australia would take in such an event.

Australian f oreign minister Julie Bishop, meanwhile, t old reporters separately that “there are a number of options available to us, particularly in diplomatic circles, and we’ll consider all those options”.

In Jakarta, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir reacted to Mr Abbott’s warnings by saying: “Threats are not part of diplomatic language and, from what I know, no one responds well to threats.”

Asked if Indonesia is ready for diplomatic fallout, he said: “I would like just to remind that bilateral relationship, in my understanding, is two ways ... It is difficult for Indonesia to see that any fallout in bilateral relationship only affects [only] one country.”

Earlier this month, Indonesia confirmed that Sukumaran and Chan, having exhausted all appeal opportunities, would be transferred from their Bali prison to the island of Nusakambangan, the execution venue, within the month, but the transfer has since been delayed — something that Mr Abbott welcomed.

The two men are the ringleaders of the so-called Bali Nine, a group of nine Australians arrested in 2005 for planning to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Indonesia to Australia. The seven others are serving prison sentences ranging from 20 years to life.

Mr Abbott suggested Indonesia should take into account the help that Australia rendered it in the wake of the 2004 tsunami disaster that killed 170,000 in that country’s Aceh Province.

“Let’s not forget that a few years ago when Indonesia was struck by the Indian Ocean tsunami, Australia sent a billion dollars’ worth of assistance. We sent a significant contingent of our armed forces to help in Indonesia with humanitarian relief — and Australians lost their lives in that campaign to help Indonesia.”

In April 2005, an Australian naval helicopter crashed on the tsunamidevastated island of Nias, killing nine Australian service personnel.

“I would say to the Indonesian people and the Indonesian government: We in Australia are always there to help you and we hope that you might reciprocate in this way at this time.”

Noting how Indonesia has sought clemency for its own citizens on death row in other countries, the prime minister said Australia is merely asking it to show the same mercy to Sukumaran and Chan.

“I don’t want to prejudice the best possible relations with a very important friend and neighbour, but I’ve got to say that we can’t just ignore this kind of thing if the perfectly reasonable representations that we are making to Indonesia are ignored by them,” he said.

Mr Abbott said he is “sick in my stomach at the thought of what may happen to these two unfortunate young Australians in a very short space of time”.

“Yes, they have done a terrible thing. Yes, they deserve a long, long time in jail. But they don’t deserve to die,” he said, adding that they appear to have become “thoroughly reformed characters in prison in Bali”.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday night that while Australia’s position is understandable, “this issue is purely a law enforcement issue”.

“The decision to impose the death penalty by the Indonesian court is not directed toward any country nor national of certain countries, but it is directed to an extraordinary crime,” she said.

In 2013 Indonesia ended a four-year moratorium on executions. Last month, it executed six convicted drug smugglers from Indonesia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Malawi and Nigeria.