Calm management the key for both leaders

THE movement of the two ­Australians to the death island of Nusakambangan is a terrible omen for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran.

No process is ever guaranteed in Indonesia, and delays are always possible, but every indication is that the Indonesians want to ­proceed with these executions quickly. Beyond the tragedy for the Australians involved, this will have serious, perhaps profound, international consequences.

There is undoubtedly a nationalist element in Indonesian sentiment on these matters. The vast majority of people to be executed in this round are foreigners.

The Indonesian government has indicated it plans to execute more than 60 people, a very large number of them foreigners, this year. If Indonesia does so, it will earn enormous international ill will. It would be a serious exaggeration to say it will become an international pariah, but its standing, and ultimately its tourist industry, will suffer.

It will be particularly damaging for the government of President Joko Widodo, whose image before these executions got under way, both internationally and domestically, was of someone who represented a new consciousness of human rights and liberalism within Indonesian life. He was, if anything, a human rights candidate for the presidency. However, there is strong support for the death penalty among the Indonesian public and a strong populist revulsion at the drugs trade.

Indonesia will lose much of the good name it has built up since the over throw of three decades of dictatorship under former president Suharto. It will certainly lose the sense it has cultivated over the last decade that it is leading concern for human rights within Southeast Asia.

Ironically, the previous president, Susilo Bambang Yudho­yono, was a career army general who in 10 years in office authorised very few executions. Jokowi, as the president is known, is at the mercy of crude, populist sentiment.

It is possible that the international repugnance at these death penalties may speed up the process, as Jakarta may calculate that if it is going to carry out the executions anyway, it is better to get them over and done with so that the international media coverage loses the focus for its intensity.

Relations with Australia will be damaged. The emotional Indonesian reaction to Tony Abbott even mentioning Australian aid to Indonesia bears out how easily nationalist sentiments are stirred up in Indonesia. At the same time, Australian sentiment has also been mightily stirred on this issue.

But it is the case that the death penalty is common throughout Asia and widely practised among Indonesia’s neighbours. The potential for a dangerous polarisation between Australian public opinion and Southeast Asia more generally is there.

This will require calm management from the leaders of both nations.