The War on Drugs in the Philippines

The War on Drugs in the Philippines

MOVE over Rodrigo Duterte, there’s a new tough guy in town this one isn’t not holding back.

And like the firebrand Philippines President, Indonesia’s head of police has an unorthodox approach for dealing with drugs and crime.

Indonesia’s National Police chief General Tito Karnavian unveiled his new policing approach to combating drugs last week — arguing suspected dealers should be shot.

Duterte, nicknamed The Punisher for his brutal approach to the war on drugs which has left 7000 people dead, promised to kill 100,000 criminals within a year of coming to power last June.

Citing Duterte as inspiration, Karnavian said he believed capital punishment was an effective way of dealing with the country’s drug problem, theJakarta Postreported.

“From practice in the field, we see that when we shoot at drug dealers they go away,” he said.

Referring to a recent foiled plan by four Taiwanese citizens to smuggle one tonne of crystal methamphetamine into Greater Jakarta, the police chief told his officers “not to hesitate shooting drug dealers who resist arrest.”

Last year Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency (BNN) head Commander General Budi Waseso called for police to emulate the Philippines’ “war on drugs.”

It comes as Indonesian President Joko Widodo instructed police to shoot drug traffickers to deal with a narcotics emergency facing the country, Reuters reported.

“Be firm, especially to foreign drug dealers who enter the country and resist arrest,” he said.

“Shoot them because we indeed are in a narcotics emergency position now.”

The order came a week after Indonesian police shot dead a Taiwanese man in a town near the capital Jakarta.

The man, who was part of a group trying to smuggle one tonne of crystal methamphetamine into the country, was killed for resisting arrest, police said.

Indonesia has been criticised by human rights group for executions of drug traffickers.

Human Right Watch Asia division deputy director Phelim Kine said Duterte’s drug war wasn’t about “capital punishment.” Instead it was a police-led summary killing campaign.

Mr Kine said while Duterte has glorified those deaths as proof of the “success” of his anti-drug measures, all it has done is target urban slum dwellers.

He also raised concerns over the pattern of unlawful police conduct which has emerged since the crackdown began.

“Both Karnavian and Waseso should denounce the Philippines’ “war on drugs” for what it truly is: a brutal, unlawful assault on the rule of law, human rights, and basic decency that has targeted some of the country’s poorest, most marginalised citizens,” he said.

debra.killalea@news.com.au