Cross Current by Margaret Rodgers
Behind Bali lies pitiful, dependent youth and their corrupt financers.
I always lock my suitcase for an overseas or interstate trip. Though I carry my passport, ticket, money and prescription tablets in my hand luggage. They seem to be the essentials that I can't afford to lose.
Many people don't bother with locks. Recently I spoke to a friend who, with his wife was travelling next day to Indonesia on behalf of a missionary society. When I said, "Lock your case," he answered, "I won't bother, I never do."
That is the confidence of someone who has made the same trip many times before, as well as perhaps a certainty that no one will find anything to steal in the average clergyman's suitcase.
Recent events pose many questions to the confidence of us both. Like most Australians I have been overwhelmed by the flood of information about the misuse of access to passengers' luggage by airport baggage handlers involved with crime figures. Added to that is the information available about the smuggling of illicit drugs into this country by so-called "drug mules'. How much do they bring in? Some appear to have made a number of trips.
Yet if we consider the importing of illicit drugs into this country, we must realise that what comes in strapped to individuals, or in single cases that are apprehended by baggage handlers before they reach customs is just a drop in the ocean compared to what comes in large containers, mostly unchecked by customs officials.
The customs officials seem under-resourced; the baggage handlers are never covertly watched because of state workplace surveillance legislation; and the Federal Police give evidence of being white-anted in the effort to fight this crime by a few corrupt members and occasional inept leadership.
The Bali Nine may well face charges in Indonesian courts that could result in the death penalty for some, if not all, of them. They
seem to be young people tempted to being "mules' by the lure of large sums of money.
If you are broke and in debt and think nothing will happen to you, and, if it does you can handle it, then no matter how many signs there are in Asian airports warning of the penalties for carrying illicit drugs, you will go ahead. Not even being a child of Christian parents and being brought up in the Christian faith is a protection, as parents have learned to their cost. Who will forget the TV news film of the Rush parents giving their son a Bible when they visited, and him clutching it to himself?
Australians will undoubtedly engage in another intense debate about capital punishment if the Indonesian judges accept the allegations against the Bali Nine and award them the harshest penalty. It will be a repeat of the 1986 debate when Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers were convicted and executed by Malaysian courts.
Most of us think that Schapelle Corby is innocent, caught out by drug smuggling mistakes in the baggage handing area. (She was baptised in prison, which highlights the worth of prison ministry.) There is evidence an incident very similar to hers occurred some time ago and when it was reported to Australian authorities they said "destroy it, if you are caught you will be in real trouble'.
All of this opens our eyes to the dangers just waiting to catch out young people, either as participants in the smuggling, or at the point of sale and dependency. It alerts us as well to the corruption of officials and the extent of criminal activity in our society.
There must be people, uncaring of the death their trade deals out to pitiful, dependent youth, who are accruing fabulous wealth through financing this illicit trade.
We treat drug dependants and "mules' as criminals. But who are the real criminals? May God's justice prevail.
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