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Friday, 22 Nov 2024 10:34 AM MYT
NOVEMBER 22 — Yet another Malaysian, who reportedly had a reported IQ level of 67, was executed in Singapore last week. He joins the growing list of drug mules who have lost their lives to Singapore’s futile attempt at winning the War on Drugs.
The execution is a grim reminder of the execution of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam in April 2022. Despite his disabilities and his role as a drug mule, there was no interest by the authorities to further investigate the allegations and information relating to a drug kingpin put forward by Nagaenthran. Does the Singaporean government truly think that a person like Nagaenthran is the one who conspired in drug trafficking operations and his death would put a stop to it?
Kalwant Singh was executed in July 2022 in Singapore after his appeals were dismissed. When he was arrested and charged in 2013, he provided information to the authorities and helped set up a potential sting that failed. Looking through the records of his hearing, there is a clear indication of a drug syndicate that recruited him and had him deliver the drugs in his possession to a recipient in Singapore.
Pannir Selvam, who was arrested in 2014 and presently languishing on death row in Singapore, provided information that led to the arrest of another person for drug trafficking in Singapore. He also provided information to the authorities about the person who recruited and gave him the drugs to be brought into Singapore. The same information that he also gave his family to help track down the individuals who recruited him.
These cases reflect the Singapore government’s strategy and belief that securing convictions and subsequent punishments for these individuals means decreasing the chances of drug dependents getting access to drugs, ergo successful drug policies.
Sadly, even their own data seem to indicate this strategy failing with ever-growing numbers of users arrested and drugs seized.
It is worth revisiting the true effectiveness of our respective drug policies. A little reflection would have suggested to policymakers that claiming victory through “…drugs seized in this operation could feed the addiction of about 3,340 drug abusers for a week…” serves very little in achieving the goals of restricting substance use.
If anything at all, maybe policymakers should consider the alternative “For every drug mule hanged, 5 drug syndicates flourish and grow exponentially”.
With Singapore’s rising drug prices, increase in the weight of drugs seized, and growing numbers of drug dependents — all while actively executing ‘drug traffickers’ — is it out of line for Malaysians to ask how many more of us do we have to lose to Singapore before our countries would come together for a solution? — Unsplash pic
The Malaysia-Singapore narconomics
If Singaporeans are motivated to cross the Causeway to save a mere RM7 per litre of RON95 petrol, one can only imagine the incentives for syndicates to commit transnational drug trafficking. Take heroin, for instance: a single gram of it costs about RM12 in Malaysia, but the same weight is worth about S$110 (RM365) once it crosses the Causeway. Simple maths thus dictates that it is lucrative for drug syndicates to transport drugs into Singapore. Not only are the profits significantly higher, but the target market is also reportedly expanding: from 994 detected heroin dependents in 2022 to 1039 in 2023.
One would therefore be intellectually dishonest to argue that drug trafficking is a ‘local problem’; as with any multinational corporation, transnational drug syndicates require an extensive supply chain and logistic network before the product reaches an end consumer. As such, merely stopping trucks on the Causeway, without attempts at dismantling the underlying supply chain, means nothing more than symbolic gestures in the realm of effective drug policymaking.
Before anyone can suggest that dead drug mules would be an effective deterrence to drug trafficking, I would like to state that drug syndicates are not known to be ethical in their conduct and would unlikely consider the value proposition of a person’s life in determining whether to send the drugs over the Causeway.
A brief examination of these men’s cases supports this narrative: for every Malaysian drug mule arrested, charged, and eventually executed in Singapore, there is a drug syndicate that sent them and benefited from having drugs transported into Singapore.
The winners and losers of transnational drug trafficking
While these men’s cases show an indication of growing transnational drug syndicates, there seems to be little effort on both sides of the Causeway to address this. Take Pannir’s case, for example: despite the information he provided to authorities about his recruiter, Singapore has seemingly declined to further investigate the drug syndicate that sent him on his way, and Malaysia is happy to pretend that this syndicate does not exist as long as Singapore does not publicly call us out.
This reality is starkly different to recent news about Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina drug mule convicted and sentenced to death in Indonesia, who was recently given a second chance by the Indonesian government. Her case led to the arrest and prosecution of two individuals who trafficked her into Indonesia and left her with 2.6kg of heroin in her luggage. The president spoke out for her and the government strived to repatriate her as a witness and a victim.
Rather than leaving these individual efforts to their own devices, maybe it is time for us to explore an Asean-level solution. Asean has a Mutual Legal Assistance treaty and Anti-Trafficking in Person treaty in place, maybe it is time to consider one for cross-border drug trafficking that continues to plague the region.
It’s not a you problem, it’s an us problem
Singapore voted against the recent UN draft resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty once again by reiterating its stance: the death penalty is part of the sovereign right of the state to develop its own legal system. With that, the city-state continues to ignore two key issues: drug syndicates operate as a multi-layered supply chain spanning across borders with various transnational actors in its chain of command, while the flow of drugs into its borders continues to be constant.
It would be naive to assume that Malaysians like Kalwant and Pannir are key to lowering the number of drug dependents or the weight of drugs seized yearly in Singapore. Likewise, it would be equally as naive to assume that the death penalty is Southeast Asia’s best foot forward in addressing record weight in drug seizures.
With Singapore’s rising drug prices, increase in the weight of drugs seized, and growing numbers of drug dependents — all while actively executing ‘drug traffickers’ — is it out of line for Malaysians to ask how many more of us do we have to lose to Singapore before our countries would come together for a solution?
* Dobby Chew is CEO of HAYAT, a human rights organisation based in Kuala Lumpur. Hayat, which means life in Malay, is committed to community mobilisation and advocacy on the right to life and other intersectional issues.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
