By Elliot Brennan
Incompatible attitudes towards recreational drugs complicates Australian diplomacy in the region.
Every few years the Australian public is outraged by the incarceration of one of its citizens in Southeast Asia for drug trafficking. In the past decade, newspaper headlines have repeatedly run photo essays and long features on Australian drug traffickers languishing in Southeast Asian prison cells.
The most recent coverage has been focused on the so-called Bali Nine, a group of young Australians apprehended in 2005 and convicted for drug trafficking in Indonesia. Last week the two ringleaders of the group lost their appeals for presidential clemency in Indonesia.
The two men, Myuran Sukumaran and Adrew Chan, are now “next in line” to be executed.
Public vigils were held across Australia last week and news media have been consumed by the sentencing of the two men. Any thought that Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo might have of granting clemency is likely to have been quashed by his declining popularity in his first 100 days since taking office. Among the reasons for this slump, his decision to scrap fuel subsidies. The death penalty in Indonesia is popular and the past president used it to leverage his popularity. Under the guise of “firmness,” Jokowi appears to be employing a similar modus operandi.
For Australia’s foreign policy in Indonesia, this causes problems.
Read the full story at The Diplomat