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An Indonesian court recently rejected the final appeals for clemency for a group of foreigners facing the death penalty for drug charges, attracting worldwide condemnation. The Indonesians didn’t care. The foreigners were perfect fodder for one of the largest and most expensively orchestrated jihad spectacles the world has ever seen. Snowing in Bali lays bare just how common drugs have been in Bali for decades, and how closely allied with the trade are the Indonesian elites. Indonesia’s President Wododo faced a storm of international criticism for refusing to grant clemency; and was entirely indifferent. In the world’s largest Muslim country, a religious grouping incensed worldwide by the conduct of Westerners in the Middle East, the killing of foreigners is not something that on the face of it caused any distress to the locals. Amongst others, Australian taxpayers contribute almost a billion dollars in foreign aid to Indonesia each year, but the President did not even bothered to take the Australian Prime Minister’s calls. The Indonesian justice system is notoriously corrupt; and has now been laid bare for the world to see. Those who sold the drugs to the foreigners were never charged. The police who took their usual bribes were never charged. And Indonesia got exactly the jihad spectacle it wanted.
The inexorable countdown to the execution of another group of foreigners on the holiday island of Bali has brought widespread condemnation of the brutality and inhumanity of the Indonesian regime’s embrace of the death penalty. The latest group includes two Australians who have been on death row for a decade as part of a group known as the Bali 9. Far from being the ringleaders they were accused of being, they were in their early 20s when caught in a heroin importation scheme. Their impending deaths have brought the relationship between Australia and Indonesia to new lows. Snowing in Bali demonstrates what is not always so clear: the rank hypocrisy of the Indonesian elites who are themselves involved in the lucrative drug trade and have grown rich on the back of the tourist trade and the island’s reputation as a place to party.
What happened to the Indonesians who sold the young Australians the drugs? Nothing.
“It’s snowing in Bali.” Among Bali’s drug dealers that’s the code for a huge cocaine shipment having just landed. For the men who run the country’s drug empires, it’s time to get rich and party hard.
Snowing in Bali is the story of the drug trafficking and dealing scene that’s made Bali one of the world’s most important destinations in the global distribution of narcotics. With its central location to the Asia Pacific market, its thriving tourist industry to act as cover for importation, and a culture of corruption that can easily help law enforcement turn a blind eye, Bali has long been a paradise for traffickers as well as for holiday-makers.
Kathryn Bonella, bestselling author of Hotel Kerobokan, has been given extraordinary access into the lives of some of the biggest players in Bali’s drug world, both past and present. She charts their rise to incredible wealth and power, and their drug-fuelled lifestyles, filled with orgies, outrageous extravagance and surfing. But running international drug empires in Bali can also be a highly risky business, with terrible consequences for those caught and convicted.
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From the highs of multi-million dollar deals to the desperate lows of death row in an Indonesian high security jail, Snowing in Bali is an uncensored insight into a hidden world.
Since studying journalism at RMIT in Melbourne, Kathryn Bonella has worked as a journalist in television and print. She returned to Australia in 2000 to work as a full-time producer for 60 Minutes. She moved to Bali in 2005 to research and write Schapelle Corby’s autobiography, My Story, and then Hotel Kerobokan.
Bonella says: “Tourists lazing by the pool are mostly oblivious to the prolific drug dealing going on all around them. But Bali is the perfect place for western dealers – many who originally went to the island simply for the idyllic surf lifestyle. In Bali they can work – dealing kilos of pure cocaine – camouflaged among the throng of tourists, and
using the smoke and mirrors of the thousands of luxury hotel rooms. Using the cover of tourists, with trafficking carrying drugs in surfboard bags or sports equipment, looking no different to the thousands of others, makes it an ideal transit spot from South America. It’s also on the doorstep to the No 1 target for all traffickers – Australia – with it’s tight borders, it has the world’s highest price for cocaine – and Asia – specifically Japan. With the party island full of tourists and wealthy expats, there’s also a strong domestic market too.
“For the drug bosses, they can deal in luxury hotel, surf and most importantly for them take advantage of the hedonism of holiday-makers who so often lose their inhibitions and are ready to party. In Snowing in Bali, one of the cocaine bosses explicitly details the regular orgies he enjoys in million dollar villas with models on film shoots or women he meets in bars and restaurants.
“But it’s not an advert for drug trafficking. The downside to this glamorous life is also highlighted in Snowing in Bali with some of the drug bosses getting busted, tortured by the Bali police for information, and sent to jail for years, life or worse, to death row to await a 12 sniper firing squad.”
As one of those busted with a kilo of cocaine only a few months ago says; “Bali can be heaven one minute and hell in the next.”
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An Indonesian court has rejected the final appeal from two Australians for clemency and now face the firing