An Indonesian minister has warned a “human tsunami” of asylum-seekers could be unleashed on Australia in retaliation if Canberra keeps pressing for clemency for two Australian drug smugglers on death row, as ties between the neighbors fray.
Several foreigners are due to be executed for drug-related crimes, with Australia among countries pleading with Indonesian President Joko Widodo to show mercy to their citizens.
They include Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, as well as a Frenchman, Brazilian, three Nigerians and convicts from the Philippines and Ghana.
Australia’s repeated calls for clemency have included comments by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott that appeared to tie his country’s aid donations to the pair’s fate.
However, the bid caused great offense in Indonesia.
Indonesian Minister of Security Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said this week that his country could release a “human tsunami” of asylum-seekers in retaliation.
“Indonesia has done a lot in preventing illegal migrants from other countries from going to Australia,” he was quoted as saying by Indonesian media. “If Canberra keeps acting this way, Jakarta will certainly release migrants wanting to go to Australia. There are over 10,000 currently in Indonesia. If they are released and we let them go to Australia, it will be like a human tsunami.”
Australia has struggled for years to stem a rising tide of asylum-seekers trying to reach its shores, often from transit hubs in Indonesia.
Many have died making the hazardous journey in crammed, rickety boats, normally after paying huge fees to people-smugglers.
Abbott last month said Jakarta should remember the US$1 billion of assistance sent from Australia in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed about 220,000 people.
However, the bid backfired in Indonesia, where groups of protesters this week delivered bags of coins to the Australian embassy, saying they were handing back tsunami aid money.
Shouting: “Shut Abbott’s mouth” and “Abbott, say sorry,” they trampled on a poster bearing a picture of the Australian prime minister with tape plastered over his mouth, as they handed over the coins.
Virgin chief executive Richard Branson yesterday added his voice to those urging death row inmates to be spared, saying the death penalty was a “failed deterrent,” while offering to fly to Jakarta for talks.
Branson, a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, said in a letter to the Indonesian leader published on Virgin’s Web site that he was willing to fly to Jakarta to discuss the issue.
“We have done a lot of research into the war on drugs on a global basis,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp of the commission. “And based on science and real studied research, we found that countries that still carry out executions for drug offences have not seen any significant shifts in supply and demand and the drug trade remains remarkably unaffected by the threat of capital punishment.”
Branson said Portugal, which decriminalized drug use in 2001, was an example of how the issue could be tackled.
Health experts have credited Portugal’s move as partly responsible for its drug addiction decline.
His plea came as Australian media said Sukumaran, 33, had made a personal appeal to Widodo by painting a portrait of the president, signing it “people can change.”
Sukumaran and Chan, 31, started programs that ranged from painting to photography in the decade they were held at Kerobokan jail in Bali after their arrests in 2005 as ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug smuggling gang.
Sukumaran’s brother, Chinthu, yesterday said before visiting Sukumaran that his family remained hopeful Widodo “will get to see how much Myuran and Andrew have done inside the prison to help the Indonesian people and that he will show mercy on our family.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema