I am writing this with a heavy heart. I grieve for Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran and their loved ones, and the others executed by firing squad in Indonesia early this morning.
But they are not the only casualties of this bungled, cold-blooded killing. I am also distressed at the serious damage Indonesia is doing to itself and its international good name and, not least, at the damage President Jokowi is inflicting on himself and what he represents for many Indonesians dreaming of the best for their important country.
Indonesia is a country of great promise with a significant, maybe crucial, contribution to make to our troubled world. As a very large, pluralist, Muslim-majority democracy it offers a template for other societies in transition. President SBY was acutely aware of this opportunity and through his democracy forums and other initiatives did much to re-brand Indonesia in this positive light.
All this good work is being undone by the anal, small-town thinking the executions represent.
The death penalty issue will hobble Indonesia's foreign policy the way the East Timor issue did during the Soeharto years. Executing the many foreign nationals still on death row in Indonesia over the months to come will bracket Indonesia with the out-dated shrinking minority of countries that continue to execute drug traffickers.
Picking fights with more countries and having to invest resources in continually putting out spot fires rather than showcasing its real strengths is not in Indonesia's or the world's best interests.
There is a better way. A moratorium on the death penalty while Indonesia's constitutional court revisits the issue will allow President Jokowi a way out and an opportunity to go on the front foot. He could, for example, convene a conference of nations with citizens on death row, including Australia, to tackle collectively and to everyone's advantage the scourge of drugs that is every parent's nightmare.
I have proposed such an initiative to Indonesia. I felt, however, like I was putting a message in a bottle into a sea of swirling cross currents.
By making the death penalty a signature policy of his presidency, and presiding over the bureaucratic and PR mess it has become, Jokowi has opened a pandora's box. In addition to alienating world opinion, it has again raised doubts about the credibility and independence of Indonesia's justice system.
It has also called into question Jokowi's competence, political judgement and motives. The death penalty was not a live issue during last year's presidential campaign. There is no popular movement in Indonesia to activate the death penalty that is remotely like the staunchly defended anti-corruption campaign, for example. It is an issue of Jokowi's own making.
Many have also been surprised at the president's refusal to respond to the individual merits of clemency appeals. It does not fit his attention-to-detail manner, and seems heartlessly cavalier on the part of a president with a deserved reputation for social sensitivity.
Rightly or wrongly, many conclude that he is playing politics with the issue and risks alienating the civil society activists who contributed to his win last year. Waiting in the wings is Prabowo, arms folded.
The executions and their over-the-top militaristic trappings are regressive. They represent the ugly side of Indonesia that has so often poisoned Australian and international perceptions of Indonesia. Indonesia's history is strewn with corpses. There's been too much killing.
Albeit judicial, this morning's executions are only the latest acts of state-sponsored killing in a long and bloody sequence that include the pogroms of 1965, the rape of East Timor, the war in Aceh and other excesses for which no-one has been held accountable, let alone shot, though post-Soeharto law provides for the death penalty for crimes against humanity.
They are a major setback to years of slog by myself and others to promote positive relations with Indonesia. Jokowi must find another way that will serve him and Indonesia better.
I am impressed by the strength of Australia's response, but also surprised. I suspect Jokowi didn't see it coming either. Why should he have anticipated such an outcry when Canberra has generally been so accommodating of Jakarta's excesses — be it the pogroms of 1965, Timor-Leste and now Papua?
Jokowi is no doubt confounded by the lack of logic in Australia tipping off the Indonesian police about the Bali 9 knowing it might lead to the death penalty then decrying the implementation of that penalty, or the Abbott Government saying more Jakarta less Geneva one day, then reversing it the next.
If Canberra is really serious about the principle at stake it must find ways of advocating for others still on death row in Indonesia. Human rights are universal. Australia's follow-up response to this morning's executions must also be proportionate to its protests if these are not to be dismissed as bluster confected for domestic consumption. The short term recall of Australia's ambassador will not be enough.
Our ultimate objective, however, must be to end the death penalty in Indonesia. It is tragically too late now for the two Australians and the others. But it will add some meaning to their lonely deaths and be in everyone's interest if Australia can help Indonesia's Jokowi rid himself of this bleeding albatross.
Pat Walsh is a human rights activist who was recently profiled in The Jakarta Post.