To: Peter Costello, Treasurer of Australia

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports:
...Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has warned against threatening Singapore over the pending execution of [Van] Nguyen.
Former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam is reported today as describing Singapore as a "Chinese rogue port city".
Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has told Southern Cross Radio that the Prime Minister should discuss Singapore's stand when he meets with other Commonwealth leaders.
... Mr Costello has hit back, saying persuasion is the best way forward.
"But threatening Singapore in my opinion is unlikely to have more effect than trying to persuade it," he said.


Mr Costello,

You say you will keep trying to save Van Nguyen’s life. You say that efforts to try to save him are futile. You characterize comments like Gough Whitlam’s, which seem eminently sensible and suitably rhetorical, amount to “threatening” Singapore.

Are you kidding? All of your rhetoric, like that of Mr Howard and Mr Downer, signals to the Singapore tyrants that they can carry on murdering their citizens, and anyone else they please, with impunity. That is simply a pathetic stance. Who does Australia wish to befriend? The tyrants who run the place, or the citizens who comprise the country and who live under the conditions that Australian citizen deplore?

For christ’s sake, man, step up and show some courage. This is not a time for your wheedling “diplomacy.” You say “persuasion is the best way forward.” Well, tell that to Van Nguyen. Tell that to his traumatized mother, family members, and friends, and to all Australians and other citizens of good grace and appropriate compassion. You have some gall to claim to represent us when you speak in this mealy-mouthed way.

Act, or Singapore will plainly know it can depend on the cowardice of its neighbours!

With appropriate disgust,