Network Against Prohibition (NAP) - NT chapter

By Gary Meyerhoff, 25th February 2005

As far as I know, 24-year-old Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van is still in a cell at Singapore’s Changi Prison facing execution. He will be given less than 24 hours notice of his hanging; and we won’t be told until it is done. The Australian Government and our media are failing him miserably. After ten months on death row, Nguyen Tuong Van should be a household name.

I remember back when I was eleven years old. I was at a friend’s place and like most Australian homes the television was blaring constantly in the background. I vividly remember stopping to watch a report that Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers had been executed and I remember a horrible feeling as I tried to make sense of what had just happened.

Barlow and Chambers were hanged in Malaysia on July 07, 1986 for the alleged trafficking of 141.9 grams of heroin. Back then, I didn’t really know what heroin was, but I knew who Barlow and Chambers were.

The Australian media lapped up the Barlow and Chambers case, using it to sell more and more newspapers and to increase the ratings on their news and current affairs programs. Australia’s press gallery went into a frenzy in an attempt to save the men.

For political reasons, this media pressure backfired. Rajendran Kuppusamy, the Malaysian hangman who performed the executions, told the Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper in 1996 that the case was rushed through the Malaysian legal system.

"The Attorney-General wanted us to make it fast, he didn't want to delay the case," said Kuppusamy. "It was really fast because they were getting pressure from all over."

Facing an election, Malaysian President Dr Mahathir Mohamad was under immense pressure to show that he was the man prepared to stand-up against the West - against White people.

Pryor, Geoff, 1944-
"How can you possibly hang my clients - they're white!"

Once the executions had happened the Australian news barons dropped the story as quickly as the two young Australians had dropped through the trapdoor in Pudu Prison.

The journalists returned to their usual mundane reporting and the issue was dead. They might have failed to prevent the executions, and possibly even contributed to the executions being rushed, but Australia’s press gallery had succeeded in imprinting the names Barlow and Chambers firmly in the Australian psyche.

Almost twenty years after the deaths of Barlow and Chambers, Nguyen Tuong Van, on his first trip overseas from Australia, was arrested at Singapore airport. Police alleged that Nguyen was in possession of 400g of heroin.  A Singapore court sentenced him to death for this crime in March 2004.

The Singapore Flag

In stark contrast to events in 1986, Nguyen Tuong Van has been virtually ignored by the Australian Government and the media. Michael Fay, the white American kid who damaged a car or two and was flogged by the Singapore Government with the rattan cane, received more attention from the Australian media than this young Aussie from Melbourne. Nguyen Tuong Van is definitely not a household name!

Why are the media ignoring Nguyen? Is it because they can’t pronounce his name or is the real reason a little more insidious than that? I mean, Schapelle Corby doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and she has been turned into a media celebrity, not to mention the millionaire Aussie yachtsman Chris Packer, recently released from an Indonesian jail after serving three months for failing to declare firearms.

I don’t want to take away from the seriousness of Schapelle’s situation. This young woman may also face the death penalty if she is found guilty of her alleged crime. Her trial has even been invaded by an Indonesian anti-drugs group demanding her execution.

With regards to media reporting though, there is obviously some sort of double standard happening.

Brian Chambers, Kevin Barlow, Schapelle Corby and Chris Packer all have one thing in common. They are all white Australians. Nguyen Tuong Van’s crime is that he is an Australian of Vietnamese origin. Australia’s predominantly white journalists (and our white Prime Minister) have written him off as just another Viet boy dealing smack, just like they write off the residents of  the Block in Redfern and Cabramatta in Sydney.

Like Singapore’s judiciary, they ignore Nguyen’s claims that he was only carrying the drugs in a desperate bid to pay off legal fees owed by his twin brother to a Sydney-based drugs syndicate.

During a recent visit to Singapore, Australian Prime Minister John Howard held a meeting with his counterpart Lee Hsien Loong where he put forward a half-hearted request for clemency. Mr Howard told the Melbourne Age; "I believe there's a very good case for clemency but people must understand that the laws of Singapore are well known and I think we'll leave it at that."

Responding to the Age reporters question on whether the execution of Nguyen would have an impact on bilateral relations between the two countries, Howard said: "Look, I think we have to keep a balance here."

What he is saying is that Australia’s military relationship with Singapore is worth more to us economically than Nguyen Tuong Van. The Republic of Singapore Air Force has aircraft and personnel permanently stationed at the Pearce air force base north of Perth and Singaporean fighter jets and naval vessels are regularly in and out of the Northern Australian city of Darwin. Australian military personnel provide ongoing training to Singapore’s soldiers, sailors and airmen and Australian naval vessels are often in Singapore undergoing repairs that would cost ten times as much back home.

Our military alliance and the subsequent boost to the Australian economy is not the only reason Howard is dragging his feet on this case. Singapore isn’t in the midst of an election and there doesn’t seem to be too much pressure from Singaporeans for Nguyen to be put to death. Sadly it looks like race is a factor in Howard’s laissez faire approach to Nguyen’s pending execution. Surely little Johnny wouldn’t let a white boy hang so easily? If Nguyen was called Barry and he was from Vaucluse or Sydney’s North Shore, Howard would be doing everything in his power to stop the hanging.

The Australian Prime Minister is acutely aware that the island nation has executed more than four hundred people since 1991, mostly for drug trafficking, giving Singapore the dubious distinction of having the highest execution rate in the world relative to population. If Nguyen hangs, Howard will have the dubious distinction of being the Prime Minister who sat by while a young Australian went to the gallows, just like he sat by while 353 asylum seekers drowned in the SievX disaster.

Nguyen awaits the results of John Howard’s request for clemency. We can only hope and pray that 81-year-old Singaporean President, Sellapan Ramanathan Nathan, will find it in his heart to call off the execution.

In the meantime, you might want to contact your local media and ask them one question; do they remember Nguyen Tuong Van?

As for Schapelle, we train Indonesia’s troops too. This could be a sticky one for the Australian Prime Minister. Let’s just hope that she gets a fair trial and that some sanity prevails in Bali.

Nguyen Tuong Van resources

Kim Nguyen, mother of 25-year-old Nguyen Tuong Van, leaves the Singapore Supreme Court (reflected in the car window) after attending her son's appeals verdict. Photo: Reuters

• download and distribute our Save Nguyen Tuong Van posters;
• tell your friends, family members, schoolmates and work colleagues about Nguyen Tuong Van and the War on Drugs;
  
• if you are in Australia you can email, write or phone your local member of the Commonwealth Parliament. Northern Territory residents should also engage with the Northern Territory Parliament. If they ignore you, find a better way to get your message across to them (if you are overseas consider writing to your own politicians);
• express your concerns about Van and the War on Drugs on talkback radio;
• write letters to the editors of newspapers and other publications;
• graffiti your local neighbourhood with slogans like "Save Van", "End military ties with Singapore" and "End the War on Drugs";
• if you are in Darwin or the Top End of Australia, support NAPNT community smoke-ins and other events;
• help organise civil disobedience activities;
• join our email list so you can keep up to date with any developments in Van's case (once you sign up as a member of our email list you can join us in our chatroom);
  
• inform the NAP about your efforts;
• tell your story… if you are the victim of drug prohibition in general, write it up and publish the story where you can (send it to the NAP so we can put it on our website);
• if you are a member of an Australian trade union, express your concerns about Nguyen Tuong Van and the War on Drugs to your union executive and fellow members... demand that your union take some action;
• if you have a website, link to http://www.napnt.org;
  
• make a donation to NAPNT to help us keep this website online and maintain our activities on the ground in the Northern Territory of Australia and beyond;
  
• help us with our newshawking efforts by sending us any media clippings on Van's case;
  
• start a chapter of NAP in your community; and
  
• write to Van and other drug war prisoners.

Write to Nguyen Tuong Van

Dear Mr Gary