A not-so existential question: What brought nine Australian youths to the brink of a firing squad in Indonesia?
It would appear that drug smuggling still has a Hollywood-like appeal. If you don’t think so, look into the hundreds, if not thousands, of young people finding themselves locked up for drugs charges in steamy foreign prisons. This craze has certainly increased from the good ol’ days of Midnight Express. But why? It could be no more complicated than more people are experiencing the air abroad. Until recently, air travel was relatively cheap. Also, gap years continue to be all the rage. Another probability: Profitability in the illicit drug market has skyrocketed so much that even a minor cog can make a killing.
Yet, you can’t take personality out of the equation. Most cases involve a classic combination of young naiveté (cops can’t see me), splashed in with greed and recklessness, along with youthful fatalistic ennui.
Just look at the Bali Nine, a group of young Australian drug mules arrested on April 17, 2005 attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilos of heroin out of the Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali to Australia. All told, the heroin strapped to their bodies had a street value of AUD 4 million, about $3.7 million.
The problem is Indonesia, like many Asian countries straddling traditional drug routes, has implemented some of the planet’s most severe drug trafficking laws. And those laws have come full bear upon the Bali Nine. After two-and-a-half years of trials and appeals and counter appeals, five of the nine defendants will sit out the rest of their lives in Indonesian prisons. Renae Lawrence, the group’s lone female, received a 20 year sentence, prosecutors say, because she immediately cooperated with authorities. The group’s two ringleaders and a single drug mule will face the death sentence for their crimes.
“Indonesia is in the middle of a major drug crack-down,” explains Tim Lindsey and Simon Butt. “Indonesian police have arrested more than 700 people in recent raids across the country. In Jakarta alone there were about 150 arrests in April [2005], some resulting in shoot-outs. Several foreigners were executed last year for drug offences.”
The two Asian law experts say the nation’s harsh sentences may stem from the government’s (and society’s) hand-wringing over growing drug problems and addictions among Indonesians, along with an escalating HIV crisis.
As the Age reported (in a well put-together story), most of the Bali Nine were recr
uited by Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen or Andrew Chan, whom Renae Lawrence contends used a carrot-and-stick tactics to control drug mules. On one hand, Chan offered to pay for the trips to Bali and to reward Lawrence handsomely for her work. He remained good with his word. Seven months before her arrest, the first time Lawrence smuggled heroin back to Australia in small, thin bags attached to her thighs and legs, Chan paid her AUD 10,000.
However, if Lawrence refused to go, Chan threatened to kill her and her family.
The story of Chan’s threats were backed up by Bali Nine members Michael Czugaj, 21, and his school friend Scott Rush, 22, who were originally asked to go to Bali with Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, who bankrolled the trip because he inferred he didn’t have anyone else to travel with. The holiday appeared normal until the final day, when the entire group was assembled in a hotel room and Chan bullied each member to participate in the scheme by threatening them with violence. Scott Rush, the only drug mule in the Bali Nine to receive the death penalty, told the court: "He [Andrew Chan] threatened us, with our families and told us he could kill us then and there. He put his hand in his pocket and said 'Look, I could shoot you now if I want, I got the gun."
Indonesian judges remained skeptical. How could you ask no questions about the intentions of someone who bankrolled a complete trip to Bali?
'No one comes out of prison undamaged'
We can’t ignore the promise of easy money. At least a couple of the mules revealed having financial problems. Also at play is the traditional aimlessness that afflicts more than a few people in their late teens and twenties.
Matthew Norman, not quite yet 22-years-old, admitted that “certain factors that happened in my life” helped lead to the events that places him today in prison with a life sentence. A few weeks before their trip to Bali, Norman and Renae Lawrence were apprehended by Australian police for driving a stolen vehicle. Michael Czugaj was described as a petty criminal in Australia before his arrest in Bali.
Scott Rush, whose criminal past is more extensive than the others, admitted that before his trip to Bali, he had stumbled through various vocations, like construction and retail and something called “finance.” He also claims to have been in the process of applying for a position in the Australian Air Force.
Prisoner rights groups have expressed worries over Rush, who they say displays signs of post traumatic stress disorder, a common malady afflicting prisoners in foreign jails, says British campaigner Stephen Jakobi of Fair Trials Abroad. (Renae Lawrence allegedly punched a wall in anger, breaking her wrist.) While Rush denies any serious problem on his blog, those working on his case are attempting to get him transferred to an Australian prison where he can receive medical care.
For the rest, who knows? While discussing how they spend their days, members of the Bali Nine seem no different than any other young person attempting to acclimate themselves to the long, hot hours of being locked up in a foreign prison. Many tell about their awakening spiritual life, the hours they spend in churches. One fell in love with the woman who brings him breakfast. They plan to marry. For a majority, it seems, afternoons are spent playing sports. And then there are the long reading lists. But the scars must be there. As Pauline Crowe of Prisoners Abroad told the Guardian: “No one comes out of prison undamaged.” Who knows if the Bali Nine will even get the chance.
Needle Exchange photo by Todd Huffman