Murderous Barbarians

"Bu chance bu?" Nguyen Tuong Van asked his guards as he stood in the doorway of his cell, just a short walk from the gallows. "Do I have a chance?” Apparently it was an attempt at gallows humour in Changi Prison in Singapore; all that was left for the kid as they led him on his final walk.

For its size, around 3.5 times the size of Washington DC, according to the CIA factbook, and population of just under 4.5 million, Singapore is undeniably one of the strongest economies in the world.
In fact, since decolonization, then breaking away from the Malaysian Federation in 1965, Singapore has become talked of in some quarters as the desired economic model – that is ‘Singapore Corporation’.
Under the repressive leadership of old ‘Harry’ LEE Kuan Yew Singapore took a slightly different direction than most emerging economies, it put money first and people somewhere down the ladder.
The old ‘board chairman’ has retired now, but hangs around as something called ‘Minister Mentor’, presumably to keep tabs on his loot and its growth potential.
This little country, where you go to jail for spitting on the sidewalk, is now led by Harry’s son, LEE Hsien Loong, a smiling businessman type and the non-executive chairman is President S R Nathan.
If you go to the Singapore Official site There is a whole photo album of the benign, businessman looking rulers of Singapore.
But don’t be fooled, these men are not benign, they are barbaric murderers.
It is not often that I am at the keyboard at 5:50 am, but I couldn’t sleep this morning. In fact every fibre of my body is screaming in outrage at the monstrous act of the Singapore Government, around this time Friday morning in that part of the world.
They took a young, 25 year old, Idiot out and hung him. Legal, official, barbaric MURDER!
Nguyen Tuong Van was charged for importation of 396.2 grams of diamorphine or pure heroin into Singapore, which is stupidity in so many different ways.
Anyone who traffics drugs deserves punishment. Anyone who presumes they can traffic to a country like Singapore deserves serious mental treatment. In Singapore there is only one, rigid punishment, hanging.
Van was an Australian, although you'd never know it by that government's behaviour. The Australian Government really distinguished themselves in this affair. Prime Minister Howard made a last minute plea, to allow the kids mother to hold his hand on the final visit.
You see, Australia is busy, among other things, arranging a marriage of convenience between the old flagship QANTAS and Singapore Airlines, and we must not let humanity interfere with economics.
To add insult to injury, while Van was heading off to the gallows PM Howard was heading off to the cricket.

So where is the corruption? Singapore is the darling of the neo-liberal economics or monetarist set. It represents the direction would be corporate government lusts after. It marries Cheney and Abramoff and cuts out the middle man. All the loot flows straight into the pockets of those who hold power.
If corruption is tolerated in our developed economies, we will look more and more like Singapore. People will be downgraded to mere drones, the generation of profit and power for an elite few the being the only function of society.
Life itself will no longer have any value, apart from being a commodity. Severe punishment will be justified as essential to ensuring a strong economy, strong for those in a position to benefit. State/Corporate control can justify any measures to ensure that the rest of humanity 'toes the line'.
This is the vision held for our 'free' democracies by the current crop of neo conservative, power elites. If that is not a total corruption of our social values I don't know what is.

I note the USA has just completed its landmark 1000th execution since the reintroduction of the death penalty, 28 years ago. Congratulations…