Outcry at drug executions
Australia recalls ambassador from Indonesia as UN criticises deaths
AUSTRALIA has said it will withdraw its ambassador to Indonesia after two of its citizens were among eight drug traffickers executed by the south-east Asian country, but was wary of escalating hostilities with its near neighbour despite a public outcry.
The executions by firing squad of the eight men – two Australians, four Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian – attracted wide international condemnation and intense Australian media coverage.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said given that Indonesia has asked for clemency for its own nationals facing execution in other countries, “it is incomprehensible why it absolutely refuses to grant clemency for lesser crimes on its own territory”.
But there was joy in the Philippines, where the government won an 11th-hour stay of execution for a Philippine woman also on death row on a drug conviction.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott – whose country has a pivotal but occasionally brittle relationship with Indonesia – reacted swiftly, announcing ambassador Paul Grigson would be recalled this week even before the executions of Myuran Sukumaran, 33, and Andrew Chan, 31, were officially confirmed.
Australia, which has abolished capital punishment, had never before made such a move in retaliation for a citizen’s execution.
“We respect Indonesia’s sovereignty, but we do deplore what’s been done and this cannot be simply business as usual,” Mr Abbott said.
Outraged Australians, meanwhile, called for a cut in foreign aid to Indonesia, less co-operation between the countries’ police forces and a tourist boycott of the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
Australia is angry Sukumaran and Chan were executed despite having ongoing court appeals, and that Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ignored evidence of their rehabilitation during their 10 years in prison before rejecting their clemency applications.
“I would say to people: Yes, you are absolutely entitled to be angry, but we’ve got to be very careful to ensure that we do not allow our anger to make a bad situation worse,” Mr Abbott said.
Foreign minister Julie Bishop, however, did not r ule out reducing Australia’s foreign aid to Indonesia. Australia gives about £312 million a year to Indonesia and is the country’s biggest donor after Japan.
Indonesian attorney general Muhammad Prasetyo dismissed concerns Indonesia had done lasting damage to international relationships with the executions.
He said: “It’s just a momentary reaction.”
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said the execution of a second Brazilian citizen in Indonesia this year “marks a serious event in the relations between the two countries”.
Michael Chan, brother of Andrew Chan, who became a Christian pastor during his decade in prison and married an Indonesian woman on Monday, reacted with anger to the executions.
“I have just lost a courageous brother to a flawed Indonesian legal system,” he tweeted after the executions on Tuesday night.