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| AI's Campaign at Hyde Park Sydney (C) Amnesty International |
Introduction
Amnesty
International (AI) has been campaigning the “End the Death Penalty” (EDP) since
1977 when only 16 countries have abolished death penalty and now in 2015 the
number has increased to 140 countries or almost two-thirds off all countries
worldwide (AI 2015). However, AI’s campaign in Indonesia on the issue of EDP has
been started since 1980s, but up until now, Indonesia is still retaining death
penalty in it laws and is also still practicing death penalty for serious
crimes such as terrorism and drug dealers (Rothwell 2015).
Since
2008, AI has been using the “Bali Nine” case as a policy window (Howlett,
Ramesh and Perl 2009: 103-104) to push Indonesian government to give clemency
for Bali Nine’s ringleaders – Sukumaran and Chan – and to abolish the death
penalty from Indonesian laws and constitution. Unfortunately, after the
implementation of several strategies such: rally campaigns, petition to the
President of Indonesia, asking for clemency video, social media, as well as
International support, AI has been unsuccessful to urge Indonesian government
to give clemency for Sukumaran and Chan and to abolish death penalty in
Indonesia. Sukumaran and Chan – along with other 6 drug dealers from Indonesia,
The Netherlands, Nigeria, and Brazil were executed in April 2015 (The Guardian
2015).
In
addition, Indonesia is planning to execute 14 people in the death row next year
(CNN Indonesia 2015) and on the other hand, 281 Indonesian migrant workers are now
facing capital punishment overseas (Jakarta Post 2015). These current developments
should become important policy windows for AI to campaign EDP in Indonesia.
Strengths and
Weaknesses
By
evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of AI campaign on EDP in Indonesia, the
new alternative campaign which addresses the weaknesses can be implemented to achieve
the goal of EDP campaign. Several strengths of AI are: AI is the biggest human
rights organisation worldwide and has various global networks including
governments and the UN who able to push Indonesian government to abolish death
penalty, AI also has local networks in Indonesia mainly from Human Rights NGOs
and AI also uses various campaign materials to spread their idea on EDP both
offline and online such as website, social media, online donations, online and
paper-based petition as well as rally and gathering (AI 2015).
Despite
several strengths above, several weaknesses can also be drawn from previous
campaign strategy such as: the use of English language for most of campaign
materials in and/or for Indonesia, AI is considered as an outsider stakeholder (Maloney,
Jordan and McLaughlin 1994: 29-31) as they do not have office or licence to
operate in Indonesia, the use of international power and the use of “megaphone
diplomacy” by some foreign governments including Australia (SMH 2015) can also
be shown as a counter-productive acts to some efforts have been made by
national human rights NGOs.
Alternative
Campaign
In
order to gain the support from Indonesian citizens and government on the EDP,
the new alternative campaign should consider national government agenda
(Howlett and Ramesh 2003: 121) so the EDP agenda will be recognised as part of
the government’s agenda. On the other side, AI should maintain their
transnational civil society networks to promote international norms to change
the policies and practice of the government (Price 2003: 583) against the
capital punishment. In short; the alternative campaign strategy should use
internal capacity of Indonesian government and citizens by building capacity
from inside and the support of international community from outside.
Strategy and Tactics
Based
on the alternative campaign strategy above, to maximise the possibility of
success of the campaign, several strategies and tactics can be implemented such
as: recognising Indonesia’s problem on death penalty, using popular media campaign,
targeting organisation with high influence to policy makers, and the use of soft
diplomacy to push Indonesian government to abolish the death penalty.
Recognising
Indonesia’s Problem on the Death Penalty
Recognising
the real problem is important part in setting up the agenda (Howlett and Ramesh
2003: 121). Moreover, Kingdon (1984, as cited by Howlett and Ramesh 2003: 120)
argues that the agenda is the list of problems or subject in which people and
government are paying serious attention to them. AI has been using the case of
the execution of eight drug dealer prisoners including two Australian men –
Sukumaran and Chan – as a policy window.
The
use of this case as a policy window to push policy change within Indonesia law
system was weak and vague because at the same time, the real problem acknowledge
by Indonesian government are the fact that Indonesia becomes international drug
market (Jakarta Post 2015) with more than 5.6 million drug users and 50 people
die from drugs everyday (Hamid and Sriyana 2014: 190-192; Rahmad and Askar 2015)
therefore – according to Indonesian government – capital punishment for drug
traffickers should be imposed in order to make deterrent effect.
In
order to gain support from Indonesian people and government, the EDP campaign
should focus on interest of the public in Indonesia. There are two important
aspects of public interest advocacy; the issue must have the potential effect
to a number of people and there will be disadvantages if the issue was ignored
(PIAC 2003: 3). One of the important example of public interest with regard to the
issue of death penalty is the fact that 281 migrant workers are now facing
death penalty abroad (Jakarta Post 2015).
In
2014, Indonesian government paid $2.1 million in blood money to stop the
execution of a woman maid in Saudi Arabia and this year Indonesia also agreed
to pay for $7 million to save another Indonesian women maid in Saudi Arabia
from capital punishment (The Daily Telegraph 2015). In response to this issue, and
also to win Indonesian government’s heart, AI should use this issue as a policy
window and focus its campaign to help Indonesian government to save Indonesian
citizen from the execution abroad. By doing this, AI could also shift their
position as the outsider onto insider stakeholder (Maloney,
Jordan and McLaughlin 1994: 29-31) and could possibly make their campaign
easier to be accepted by policy makers in Indonesia.
The use of
popular media in Indonesia in shaping public opinion
It
is undoubtable that media play important role in shaping public opinion (Takeshita
2005: 275). Moreover, Andrew and Chan (2010: 1) argue that news media can
influence the shape of public agenda by influencing opinion of the public,
authorities and also elites. Unfortunately, AI’s campaign penetration in
Indonesia was mostly done by internet where the number of internet users in
Indonesia is minority or only 29% of the population (Jakarta Post 2015).
According
to accessibility bias model, people
tend to rely on information with high accessibility when making judgments
(Takeshita 2005: 276). Therefore, in order to shape public opinion on the
importance of the EDP, AI – together with its local partners in Indonesia –
should focus their campaign in popular media such as television and radio. According
to the data from Communications
and Information Ministry, media penetration in Indonesia is led by television
(95%) and radio (47%) while newspapers and magazines are only 25% and 13% respectively
(Jakarta Post 2015). This is important to spread the idea to general people including
low-income citizens – the one who only can access television and radio as their
sources of information – because according to mass behavior research, the
view of general citizens will be taken more seriously by politicians and
government (Kimball et al 2012: 6-7).
In addition, in order to get more Indonesians
understand the importance of the EDP, AI should also use Indonesian language or
even some major local languages in their campaign materials. AI campaign
materials are mostly in English while the use of English in Indonesia was very
low. Indonesians’ English proficiency is ranked at 34 out of 44 countries
surveyed in 2007-2009 (Kompas 2011). Moreover, majority of Indonesians (79.5%)
tend to communicate with their own local languages, 19.9% use Indonesian
language, and only 0.3% use foreign languages for daily conversation (BPS 2010:
11).
Targeting
Stakeholders with High Influence on Policy Making Processes
By
using stakeholder power analysis (Mayers 2005: 11-12), several stakeholders can
be categorised as stakeholders with high potential and high power to influence
policies that AI should collaborate with, such as: political parties,
parliament members, court system (judges and attorneys) and two biggest
religious organisations: Muhammadiyah
and Nahdlatul Ulama. During its
campaign in Indonesia in 2008 until 2015, AI – through their video and petition
– only targeted Indonesian President without targeting parliament members and
political parties (AI 2015; SkyNews 2015).
AI’s
Long term campaign in Indonesia should target political parties and their
members in the parliament instead of only targeting president or minister as
they could be changed every 5 years. This is crucial because political parties play
important role in shaping government’s policies (Ware 1996: 353-354). Leftwich
(2000: 4-17) also argues that politics takes central part in development
policy. In addition, Court and Young (2006: 86) state that the cycle of policy
process are all significantly shaped by the political context.
Moreover,
AI with its local partners in Indonesia should also target judges and attorneys
in their campaign and activities by doing training, focus group discussions or
workshops. This is important as the implementation of the death penalty in
Indonesia depends on the decision of judges by considering the prosecution from
attorneys. In the Bali Nine case for
example, all members of the Bali Nine were
actually charged to capital punishment by the prosecutors (ABC 2005) but at the
end of the day, only Sukumaran and Chan were sentenced to death by the Denpasar
District Court in 2006 (ABC 2006).
Kimball
et al (2012: 6) argue that lobbying agenda can shift the priority of the
government policies.
Therefore, lobbying agenda to some organisations
with high power and high influence to policies such as Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama should also be implemented in
order to gain their supports.
Soft Power Diplomacy
Soft
power diplomacy or the use of diplomacy by focusing on making friends rather
than creating enemies is a critical component of foreign policy and it can be
used to achieve goals in international relations (Cooper et al 2013: 553). The
opposite of soft power is hard power diplomacy which largely monopolised by
hierarchical structure and can be done by making sanctions or other negative
political reactions (Cooper et al 2013: 564-568).
In
doing the campaign of EDP in Indonesia, the use of soft power will likely be
successful rather than the use of hard power or also “megaphone diplomacy” as
practiced by Australian government and Amnesty International through their announcements,
media press releases and menaces (AI 2015; SMH 2015). Australia’s “megaphone
diplomacy” and lack of consultation over several policies has caused harmed
relations between two countries and widespread unhappiness in Indonesia and
therefore should be fixed (SMH 2015).
Since
the EDP campaign in Indonesia is part of the Transnational Civil Society Advocacy
Networks (Carpenter 2007: 102; Price 2003: 584), the use of local norm,
cultures and standards is important strategy need to be implemented in order to
achieve the goal of movement organisations (Stroup and Murdie 2012: 428). Moreover,
AI should also consult and work with its networks in Indonesia to avoid any counter-productive
actions or even backlash of nationalism sentiment within Indonesia. Basuki
(2015:n.p) argues that the indignant reactions and aggressive statements and
actions by some foreign leaders and activist have been counter-productive to
efforts that have been done by human rights civil society networks in
Indonesia.
Conclusion
AI
campaigns on the EDP since 1977 have been successful in many countries, unfortunately
the campaign has been unsuccessful in Indonesia despite many efforts have been
done by AI and also its networks in Indonesia. Therefore, in order to have a
bigger chance of success, AI and its networks should implement a new
alternative approach to their campaign strategy including the use of right
policy window by recognising Indonesia’s problem on death penalty, the use of
popular media in order to get more citizens’ attention and supports, targeting
stakeholders with high influence and power and also the use of soft power
diplomacy and focus on engagement rather than confrontation actions.
Written by: Agung Wasono (October 2015)
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