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Australians Riled Over Indonesian Case

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1098/a07.html
Newshawk: Beth

Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jul 2005
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: Foreign Desk, Section 1, Pg 10
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Raymond Bonner, Sydney, Australia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Schapelle (Schapelle Corby)

AUSTRALIANS RILED OVER INDONESIAN CASE

SYDNEY, Australia - It would be hard to find an Australian who knows about a woman named Tran Thi Hong Loan, a 33-year old Australian citizen who is serving a life sentence in Vietnam for drug trafficking. 

But on this vast continent, it would be harder to come across anyone who does not know about Schapelle Corby, the 27-year-old Australian who was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison by an Indonesian court at the end of May for smuggling nine pounds of marijuana into Bali in her boogie-board bag. 

Australians cannot seem to get enough of the Corby story, and it has unleashed a torrent of venom unlike almost anything seen in recent Australian history.  There have been calls for a tourist boycott of Bali, long a favorite holiday destination for Australians, and even for an end to aid for tsunami victims. 

White powders have been delivered to the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra, and the parliament building in Perth was spray painted with a 90-foot, four-color mural and the words "Free Schapelle," "Invade Indo" and "Bang Bam." Indonesia's president is Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. 

Many Australians are troubled by the reaction to the Corby case, and they blame conservative radio talk-show hosts and the tabloids for it, though the mainstream press has been just as absorbed.  Ms.  Corby has been portrayed as a damsel in distress, the victim of a corrupt judicial system in a backward nation. 

The quick explanation for the country's fixation on the Corby case appears to be that she is young, attractive, stylish, female and white. 

"Corby is an all-Australian girl," The Australian said in a recent editorial.  "Parents around the country look at her, see a reflection of their own kids, and react accordingly."

In contrast, the majority of the 46 other Australians imprisoned in Southeast Asia are of Asian heritage. 

Indonesia may be physically close to Australia, but as The Sydney Morning Herald put it recently, "We are neighbors, but strangers."

Australia is generally white, Anglo-European and Christian.  Indonesia is overwhelmingly brown, Asian and Islamic.  Australian antipathy and fears of Asia are deep-seated and longstanding. 

In the 19th century, Australia adopted a whites-only policy, when it feared Chinese immigrants, and the policy remained in effect until the 1970's.  Twenty years ago, Asian faces were still relatively rare in Australia; now the country's larger cities are Asian melting pots.  But old attitudes die hard. 

"In my view, this reaction is fundamentally racist," Tim Lindsey, director of the Asian Law Center at the University of Melbourne Law School. 

That is the reason most often given by many Australians when asked to explain the vitriol over the Corby case.  "It is the dark underbelly of Australia," said a senior government official, who like others interviewed on the subject did not want to be named for fear of public acrimony. 

Ms.  Corby's defense was that the marijuana must have been put in her bag by corrupt baggage handlers at Qantas, the airline she flew. 

Based on the evidence presented, the judges were reasonable in finding her guilty, Mr.  Lindsey said.  He has been careful not to say that he considers Ms.  Corby guilty, only that the judges acted reasonably.  But that has not spared him a torrent of angry e-mail. 

Qantas and Prime Minister John Howard have been inundated with similar e-mail messages. 

Australian ill will toward Indonesia is more pronounced than against other Asian countries, said Allan Gyngell, director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, a nonpartisan research institute in Sydney.  Australians consider Indonesia the greatest security threat to Australia, even greater than China, Mr.  Gyngell said.  "It is absolutely irrational," he added. 

For many Australians, the greatest fear seems to be of hordes of Indonesian refugees pouring into their vast land.  But this, too, is historically unfounded. 

Indonesians have not emigrated in mass numbers.  Even though Indonesia is several times larger in population than the Philippines, the number of Indonesians working abroad is miniscule compared to the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos working overseas. 

In recent years, Australia has put thousands of illegal refugees behind barbed wire in detention camps.  Many came in boats from Indonesia.  They have carried not Indonesians, though, but rather Iraqis, Iranians, Afghanis and Pakistanis. 

In the last six months, Indonesia and Australia have taken steps to improve relations.  Indonesia is Australia's most important strategic neighbor, and Mr.  Howard has made more visits there than his predecessors did.  Likewise, one of Mr.  Yudyohono's first foreign trips after becoming president was to Australia. 

"It would be unfortunate if the travails of one young woman were permitted to endanger the nations' mutual regard," The Australian's correspondent in Indonesia, Siam Powell, wrote recently.  "Every effort should be made to get the more obnoxious Australians to think again, and preferably to shut up."