State Terrorism

Cruel and Unjust Punishment

With the execution of the Bali Nine in Indonesia the death penalty has come back into the frame.  According to Wikipedia, Indonesia maintains the ultimate judicial sanction for nineteen offences:

• Attempt with intent to deprive the President or Vice-President of his or her life or liberty or to render him or her unfit to govern (Indonesian Criminal Code (Kitab UU Hukum Pidana – KUHP) Art. 104)
• Aiding or protecting Indonesia’s enemies at war (KUHP Art. 123 & 124)
• Fraud in delivery of military materials in time of war (KUHP Art. 127)
• Killing the head of state of a friendly state (KUHP Art. 140)
• Premeditated murder (KUHP Art. 340)
• Robbery or theft resulting in grave injury or death (KUHP Art. 365)
• Piracy resulting in death (KUHP Art. 444)
• Instigating or inciting rebellion or riot against a state defense company during times of war (KUHP)
• Extortion with violence (KUHP)
• Possession and misuse of firearm and/or other explosive (Emergency Law No. 12/1951)
• Criminal acts during air flights or against aviation infrastructure (Law No. 4/1976)
• Production, transit, import and possession of psychotropic drugs (Law No. 5/1997 on Psychotropic Drugs)
• Production, transit, import and possession of narcotics (Law No. 22/1997 on Narcotics)
• Corruption under “certain circumstances,” including repeat offenders and corruption committed during times of national emergency/disaster (Law No. 31/1999 on Corruption)
• Gross violations of human rights, including genocide and crimes against humanity (Law No. 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts)
• Acts of terrorism (Law No. 15/2003 on Combating Criminal Acts of Terrorism)

However, in actuality only murder and drug trafficking have resulted in the ultimate penalty being handed out.  But more sinister is the fact that the death penalty has been applied in Indonesia extremely rarely (whether for murder or drug trafficking) until this year (2015), where fourteen people have been executed for drug trafficking thus far.

It seems as though a political campaign is underway in Indonesia.
  Commentators have pointed out that drug use is an increasing  problem within the country.  Faced with spiralling drug use and addiction the government has decided to apply the death penalty for drug offences frequently, often, and relentlessly.

It is at this point the intrinsic injustice of the executions becomes evident.  The issue is not the death penalty per se.  It is the systems or philosophies of justice, crime, and punishment underlying it.  It is a fundamental principle of justice that the punishment must fit, or be appropriate to, the crime committed.  But this is not what is the case here.  The Indonesian government has commenced executing people as part of a propaganda campaign.  Justice is thus mocked: what is presently happening in Indonesia is state-sanctioned murder.

 Now, we reiterate that this is not some sort of emotive outburst against the death penalty as a legitimate sanction for extreme and terrible crimes.  Rather, it is an argument against using the death penalty (or any lesser judicial penalty) as an instrument of state propaganda to reduce criminal offending.

The utilitarian theory of crime and punishment is that there is no ultimate limit upon punishment to be administered as long as it serves the greater good.  In other words, the social impact and social engineering are the real objectives of state sanctions and punishments for crime.  The extreme utilitarian does not even care whether the individual executed or punished was innocent or guilty--as long as the example being thus made by their punishment works for the greater good of reducing crime and making the community safer for all.

This unjust and wicked path is precisely the one now embarked upon by the Indonesian government.  Drug traffickers are not being executed for their crimes.  They are being executed in much larger numbers for their "value" in deterrence, to prevent Indonesian citizen's involvement in drugs (whether taking or trafficking).

It is a policy which is abhorrent and unjust.  To recap: it is not an issue of whether the death penalty is intrinsically just or unjust.  Rather, in Indonesia the death penalty in intrinsically unjust.  The government has made it so.  And for that the government deserves scathing criticism.  Arguments about the rectitude or otherwise of the death penalty are irrelevant and mere distractions. 

What is ironic is that this particular Indonesian government policy gets mighty close to terrorism.  The terrorist  is the ultimate utilitarian--engaging in violent and criminal acts against the innocent for their propaganda impact upon everyone else.  Executing people to make an impact upon the nation is getting very close to state sanctioned terrorism.  But that's always been implicit in utilitarian theories of punishment.