Indonesia’s War on Drugs Follows Philippines’ Infamous Crusade to Curb Drug Use

• Widodo recently ordered police to shoot foreign drug dealers who resist arrest
• Idham Azis said he would not think twice to discharge police officers who were indecisive against drug trafficking
• Human Rights Watch official Phelim Kline criticized the move

Jakarta, Indonesia, August 13, 2017: Indonesian president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is once again using the language of "emergency" to ramp up the country's war on drugs, in a move that seems in step with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte's infamous crusade in a neighboring island country.

Widodo recently ordered police to shoot foreign drug dealers who "resist arrest," claiming the country was in a "narcotics emergency position." Then, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights announced a plan to consolidate drug felons in four prisons. On Tuesday, Jakarta police chief Gen. Idham Azis said he would "not think twice" to discharge police officers who were indecisive against drug trafficking.

Widodo's speech last week came on the heels of a drug-related police shooting in Jakarta, targeting a Taiwanese man who resisted arrest while trying to smuggle one ton of crystal methamphetamine into Indonesia.

Human Rights Watch official Phelim Kline criticized the move, writing in a statement that, "President Joko Widodo should send a clear and public message to the police that efforts to address the complex problems of drugs and criminality require the security forces to respect everyone's basic rights, not demolish them."

Meth panic

The target of President Duterte's drug war is the cheap crystal methamphetamine known locally as shabu, and it is also the subject of Indonesian hand-wringing. The ton seized last month was the largest drug seizure in the nation's history.

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The head of Indonesia's narcotics agency, Gen. Budi Waseso, has been calling for a Philippines-style war on drugs as early as September 2016.

"The market that existed in the Philippines is moving to Indonesia, the impact of President Duterte's actions is an exodus to Indonesia, including the substance," Budi told Australia's ABC News.

Indonesia enforces capital punishment for drug trafficking, which makes it an offense on par with murder and terrorism. It is estimated that about 70 percent of Indonesia's prison population are low-level drug offenders.

"For me, there is a question mark over President Jokowi's narcotics policy," said Erasmus Napitupulu of Jakarta's Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. "He always talks about the death penalty as a way to protect the nation's children." But in fact, he said, "the death penalty targets small drug couriers, which in many cases leads to unfair trials. Indonesian law has not been able to bear the burden of a fair trial," he said.

Calls for leniency

"Of course we are concerned with the president's rhetoric … to justify the war on drugs," said Edo Nasution, national coordinator of the nonprofit Solidarity for Indonesian Drug Victims.

"Evidence-based drug policy is what we need, not a policy that is only based on moral values or ideology," said Edo, a one-time drug user who spent 13 years in Indonesian jails. "For example, there has been harm reduction programs in Indonesia for a long time and there is much scientific evidence as to the success of this approach."

Harm-reduction refers to the practice of managing the risks of drug use, such as providing sterile needles, rather than trying to eradicate drug use.

Southeast Asia has long resisted trends toward leniency for drug users or traffickers, with countries like Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines resolutely maintaining harsh penalties that they say deters a major societal problem. As of last year, Thailand seemed like it might rethink the criminalization of methamphetamine because of overcrowded prisons, but there are no such signs in Indonesia.

Widodo's last big anti-drug push was in 2015, two months after he was sworn into office when he executed 14 people for drug offenses.

"Far from having a deterrent effect, the number of drug-related crimes in Indonesia increased in the months after the executions were carried out in January and April 2015," according to Claudia Stoicescu, an Oxford University researcher.

The increased resources devoted to drug-related arrests have drawn money away from rehabilitation centers that some say would better serve Indonesia's nearly 1 million (according to the National Narcotics Agency) drug addicts. In the absence of such treatment, many poor addicts are turning to dubious herbal and faith-based cures that do nothing at best.

Erasmus wishes Indonesia would learn from the experience of the United States, which has gradually softened its approach to marijuana.

"American narcotics policy that criminally prosecuted drug users failed even without the death penalty. The result? The U.S. gradually changed the direction of policy toward decriminalization [of marijuana]," he said. "If Indonesia retains capital punishment as the main solution for drug issues, then I believe it is a political decision to preserve [politicians'] image, not to protect actual narcotics victims." (VOA)