Feeling Raji Sukumaran’s pain, one mother to another

Myuran Sukumaran’s mother, Raji Sukumaran, has written an open letter to Indonesia’s Joko Widodo expressing her emotions and berating him for refusing clemency for her son.  From one mother to another, leading into Mother’s Day, do you feel her pain?   

She asked him to imagine his own child standing in front of the firing squad and took him on the journey of torture her son had been through after his crime 10 years ago. The emotion is palpable.

“I am not sure where you were as the men you ordered to kill my son, and seven others pulled the trigger but I am sure you were far away,” she wrote.

“My son died knowing all his loved ones were close by waiting in a hotel room to hear the news that he had been executed.

“My son did commit a serious crime but he also apologised to your country and your people many times”.

“Myu spent many years rehabilitating so many prisoners. He hoped that he could help as many people as possible, to give them a chance to leave prison to go out in the world a little better than they came inside.

“My son never asked for his rehabilitation to be enough to free him from prison, all he asked was he he not be killed. Was it too much for you to let him live the remainder of his life in prison?”

“Mr President, do you think that your punishment towards my son after he had spent 10 years in gaol reformed and helping others and then executing him is fair and just,” Ms Sukumaran wrote.

You tortured him by making jokes about his life, making him guess the night he would be taken, openly discussing the way in which he would die, parading and humiliating our family.

“I hope that your children, your grandchildren, your nephews and nieces never make a mistake”.

“I also want you to remember when your child falls in love, gets married, makes plans for the future, that Andrew Chan also fell in love, made plans for his future and was executed. How would it feel if this was your son?”

“I asked to meet you, to speak to you but once again you could not even have the courage to face our requests to communicate with you”.

“Nevertheless, when there is any aid given from Australia, that was their effort to improve the partnership [with Indonesia], so it would be their right to give it, though we did not ask for development funds,” he said.