Two items dealing with death and drugs in the news this
week struck me forcibly. The first was the reported death
in bed of drug warlord Khun Sa in Rangoon aged 73. The second
was the decision of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia
to uphold the death sentence for serious drug offences, appearing
to doom three of the Bali 9 Australians sentenced to death
for trafficking.
I’m clear where I stand on the death penalty. I’m
98% against it. If that seems illogical to some, it don’t
to me. Some crimes are so vile it seems a collective necessity
to snuff out the errant part. At least 1% of those qualifying
in my book are world leaders committing mass murder. Hitler,
Sadam, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot for example. Not, murderous
3rd World Kleptocrats necessarily, not Churchill for Dresden,
not Truman for Hiroshima, or even that culpable dolt George
W. Bush Jr. and his criminal mentor Dick Cheney for inept
warmongering and the promotion of torture and malfeasance.
Those two should be brought to book once their ignominious
reign ends, that is if the US wants to regain any moral stature
in the world. Some particularly twisted individual serial
killers, who are not insane, we are also perhaps better off
without.
Other than that, the judicial putting to death of other humans
is so demeaning to us, arbitrary and unfair in application,
cruelly done and far too often a mistake killing innocents,
we’re much better off biting the bullet and expense
of putting really bad people away for life. There is, I agree,
such a thing as blood debt. The Israelis had a right to seek
out Eichmann and decide amongst themselves whether to kill
him or not. The Hague, on the other hand only has imprisonment
as an option. And that, is as it should be.
“Behind every great fortune”, said Balzac “there
is a great crime”.
Nowhere is that more true than in the murky world of drug
peddling. And why should individuals be any different from
nations? Most governments have indulged in the drug trade,
many quite recently - if not still. Their facilitators laden
with public honours, even statues in public places. Much like
the slave trade in times gone by.
In his day Khun Sa and his Shan State Army held sway over
a minor kingdom in the Golden Triangle between Burma, Laos
and Thailand. From 1963 to 1996 he was the biggest thing in
opium accounting for 70% of the world’s production through
the 1970’s. He was able to “fight off” both
Burmese and Thai armies, not to mention whatever devious actvities
the CIA got up to in the area since 1949, first with Kuomintang
remnants, then whatever other secret ops throughout the Indo-Chinese
wars they pursued. In 1996 Khun Sa surrendered to the Burmese
army and lived in quiet but comfortable and honourable retirement
in Rangoon until his death a week ago from a combination of
heart disease and diabetes. Drug king that he was, Khun Sa
was actually an underling, an illiterate front man for a Chinese
opium cartel based in Yunan, who are still in business to
this day. PRC involvement in the drug trade remains a real
elephant in the region’s living room. Senior Thai military
men and parliamentarians, even a prospective Thai Prime Minister
have been denied visas to visit the US because of their links
to the drug business. And Thailand is by no means unique in
this respect. Think Columbia, think Mexico and biggest of
all nowadays, Afghanistan.
Once in a while, to mark a politically motivated “crackdown”,
a Thai Chinese courier from an opposing clique would be caught
and ritually shot in prison by means of an old Browning machine
gun. Recently ousted Thai PM, Thaksin Shinawatra, an ex-cop
himself, took things a step further and actually had the police
going around in public unofficially shooting drug dealers
in large numbers. What, one wonders, was really going on there?
Turf wars? In Malaysia and Singapore leaders Mahathir and
Lee Kuan Yew vied in the lethal punishment of minor drug traffickers,
defined as possessing as little as 200 gm marijuana or 15
gm of heroin (funny that, or rather not, when you recall the
US wouldn’t let a Thai MP back into the country for
smuggling 45 tons of dope....). Both Lee and Mahathir seemed
to actively relish the noose for Westerners, not just their
own unfortunate nationals. And who of us living in various
of the ASEAN countries has not heard stories of drug involvement
by criminal elements of the army, police or bent politicians?
Or of professional dealers bribing their way out of the frame?
It seems it’s always the mules, the couriers who get
caught and have to pay the ultimate penalty. I can’t
recall when a major drug lord was ever brought to book.
As Amnesty points out, “the death penalty is not a deterrent
to the drug trade, because it is the runners, not the kingpins,
who are most at risk of facing the gallows.” No, what
the kingpins risk is not getting a US visa.
It’s the same the whole world over
It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure,
It’s the poor wot gets the blame;
Ain’t it all a bleedin’ shame...”
Of course, as outsiders we are never going to know to what
extent the small fry, when they get caught, are innocent,
simply dupes or even sacrificial offerings. I suspect though,
many are guilty as charged, petty crooks and independents.
That doesn’t make it right to kill them, while the puppet-masters
continue in business without apparent let or hindrance. Until
government agencies themselves get out of the drug business,
and that includes the US, it is a cynical travesty to shoot
the mules (read asses). Drugs are politics and money, all
the things the rich and the powerful have an interest in,
direct or not. There really is no point in pretending otherwise.
It would be nice if we could keep politics out of it when
it comes to punishing the pawns. How can the US expect to
be taken seriously about suppressing the drug trade, whether
it’s Central, South America or Asia when its own covert
agencies are involved in the business? Interestingly, in 1987
Khun Sa in a letter to the US Justice Dept. was to name US
diplomat Richard Armitage and Theodore Shackly, CIA Laos Station
Chief in Laos and Vietnam (1965-75) as key figures in the
international heroin chain and other black operations, including
the infamous Phoenix Program. The Bangkok Post at the time
carried reports of their using Australia as a transit base
and Australian banks as financial clearing houses for drugs.
But then Khun Sa might say something like that, mightn’t
he…?
How can John Howard, Australia’s PM press for the effective
action against the drug trade and object when the law is applied
to Australian traffickers? How can he press for the law to
take its course with the Bali bombers but not for the Bali
9? Answer of course: the Bali 9 didn’t kill anyone.
But that’s no help to the Indonesian President who’s
going to be in political trouble if he executes Moslems, as
he‘s under international pressure from the Americans
to do, but not Christians, (he’s already demonstrated
his political will there), and lets off Australians. Some
strategising is obviously in the process of being worked through
behind the scenes given the up/down decisions on the various
Bali 9 appeals.
What then of the role of the Australian Federal Police? They
knew about it all beforehand. It was they who tipped off the
police in Bali. They were even in conversation with the worried
parents of one of the gang ahead of time. Australian law is
pretty clear that the AFP shouldn’t shop Australians
if there’s a chance they’ll receive the death
penalty. Someone blundered and some benighted youngsters may
pay with their lives. All horribly murky and unsavoury. Police
business usually is.
I hope it all means a deal is in the wind, not a flurry of
executions.
There’s quite enough killing in the world as it is.
Ain’t it all a bleedin’ shame......
ParacelsusAsia
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ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com
