Nusakambangan Island is a land of many names. To some, it’s known as the “Indonesian Alcatraz,” an island fortress where the baddest members of Indonesian society are sequestered, imprisoned, and executed by firing squad.
To others, it’s “the most feared island in Indonesia”, named for its notorious, punishing collection of prisons, founded in 1908 and now holding more than 2 000 souls in four separate facilities. Others see its natural wonders, proclaiming this island prison Indonesia’s “new holiday resort”.
And then there’s the name that’s most apt for a pair of Australians who led the Bali Nine drug smuggling racket: “Execution Island”. That’s the fate that awaits Andrew Chann and Myuran Sukumaran, who were convicted in 2006 of recruiting seven others to smuggle 8kg of heroin from Indonesia back to Australia.
While the seven got lesser sentences, Chan and Sukumaran arrived on the island early on Wednesday. Within the next few weeks, barring a last-minute reprieve, they will face death by firing squad along with other foreigners from Brazil, France, Ghana, and Nigeria.
When they arrive at the island, which is inhabited by drug dealers, murderers, and political opposition figures, they will find a land of brutality and beauty. The island is awash in one of the world’s most biodiverse fauna and flora, some of which is extinct on the other islands.
For those condemned to die, the execution usually goes like this: The inmates are taken into the woods at midnight, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. They are blindfolded. Then told to sit or crouch down. Once immobilised, a dozen gunmen take aim and shoot them in the chest. If the prisoner survives, the Herald noted, “the commander will shoot him or her point-blank in the head”.
“Their death zone is known as Nirbaya, about 3km south of the jail, up a narrow dirt track. The area is fringed by an orchard.”
The imagery is fitting for the island - a place teeming with life, but haunted by death. It’s a place where the act of killing is conducted with brisk efficiency.
The island was also the site of one of the country’s most infamous executions: the death of the Bali bombers. In 2002, the men plotted a terrorist attack which killed 202 people in Bali.
“The whole experience was surreal,” Australian journalist Mark Forbes told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Aside from the security and having to pass through barred doors, it was like a holiday, with the boat trip, sunny weather, and people joking and laughing. It didn’t feel like you had walked into the last stop for these men before their executions.”
Washington Post