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Indonesia bombed into
awareness
By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - The bomb that killed more than
180 people in Bali Saturday night was a deadly wakeup
call for Indonesian authorities to jumpstart their
ineffective, politicized security efforts. The attack in
a prime tourist area and two other small blasts include
some new elements, but they fit a longstanding pattern
of deadly, craven violence throughout Indonesia that
should have preempted any debate about whether the
country has a terrorism problem.
The May 1998
Glodok rampage in Jakarta, unsolved bombings at the
Jakarta Stock Exchange in November 2000 and numerous
other sites around the capital and archipelago, plus
religious clashes in the Maluku islands and Central
Sulawesi are among dozens of examples of organized
violence targeting innocent people to disrupt the social
order, unchecked by security forces. Whether the
masterminds are homegrown independent operators, rogue
armed force elements, or imports allied with al-Qaeda is
irrelevant.
Yet Indonesia's political elite,
most notably Vice President Hamzah Haz and People's
Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais, characterize
claims of terrorist activity in Indonesia as an attack
on Islam. Western leaders must clearly differentiate
between war on terrorism and war on Islam, and so must
responsible Muslim leaders, particularly when playing
politics with security may lead to tons of charred flesh
on the busiest street in Kuta, Bali's ground zero for
tourism, and now for terror.
No
responsibility, please; we're politicians
Of
course, as potential presidential candidates, Hamzah,
Amien, and other ambitious politicians eschew
responsible behavior. Instead, they pander to the most
extremist elements, such as Abu Bakar Ba'asyir's accused
terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah and Laskar Jihad
that recruits "warriors" to kill Christians in Ambon,
wrapping themselves in white as defenders of Islam.
Rather than expressing concern about the
activities of accused al-Qaeda operative Omar al-Faruq
reported last month, including alleged plots to
assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoprtri, phony
populists accused the US of leaking the story to
embarrass Indonesia. They challenged American
authorities to present evidence that terrorists are
operating in Indonesia, rather than simply observing the
body count from four years of extremist violence.
These radical huggers also assert that US claims
about terrorist activity will incur an angry backlash
from Indonesia's people. Does Hamzah Haz believe that
Indonesia's people favor indiscriminant destruction over
law and order?
Rather than focusing on innocent
lives lost and threatened, Indonesia's elite exploits
the terrorism issue to burnish its anti-Western
credentials. But for Indonesia's 230 million people,
what America did in Afghanistan or may do in Iraq is
irrelevant compared to the random slaughter that's
become an unfortunate fact of life in many areas of the
country. Bali earned its star on that map Saturday
night.
On Sunday, Megawati expressed her outrage
at the latest attacks and flew to Bali. The usually
reticent leader even dared utter the t-word, saying the
blasts "once again remind us that terrorism is a real
danger and potential threat to national security". It
will not be long before her prospective opponents in the
2004 election blame American rhetoric that insulted
Indonesia for inciting the bombers.
Rights
violations?
Most deliciously, politicians
questioned whether al-Faruq's rights were violated by
his arrest. As for Ba'asyir, police blandly assert that
Indonesia is a democracy so they can't simply arrest
people on suspicion. Without apparent irony, these
collaborators, if not operatives, under Suharto's
authoritarian reign now claim to have gotten religion
about the rights of suspects.
What about the
rights of the country's thousands of innocent victims?
The run of violence since the fall of Suharto in
1998, no matter how it's categorized, is a rich vein for
conspiracy theorists. Many contend that forces loyal to
the deposed strongman hope to destabilize the country
and reassert their grip. Security forces unable or
unwilling to staunch the bloodletting and a political
class bred under the Smiling General's New Order add to
suspicions that bombings, separatist movement attacks
(see Indonesia's gold standard, Asia Times Online, September 7, 2002), and
communal violence are a wayang kulit (shadow
puppet) show by a hidden puppeteer awaiting a desperate
nation's call to emerge.
Copying the signature
of international terrorists could be a new scene in that
play for power. Or, as Ba'asyir asserted on Indonesian
television Sunday, the Sari Club bomb must be a US plot
to manufacture evidence for its claims of terrorism in
Indonesia, since local groups could not assemble such a
large explosive device.
The fundamentalist
cleric is right that the size of the bomb and the
sophisticated tactic of detonating a smaller bomb nearby
to funnel more traffic to the main blast location, rules
out a gangster war or local prostitutes angry over being
banned from the clubs earlier this year. But it rules in
international terrorists (Ba'asyir includes the US on
his list) and security forces.
Saturday night's
other targets were the US Honorary Consulate in Renon,
an exclusive residential area of Bali, and the
Philippine consulate in Manado at the northern tip of
the island of Sulawesi, just south of the Muslim
separatist war zone in Mindanao. Philippine diplomats
have been repeatedly targeted throughout Indonesia.
US diplomatic offices in Indonesia closed for
five days around the anniversary of the September 11
attacks. US Ambassador Ralph Boyce met with security
officials and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan
Wirayuda last week to highlight security concerns. The
international roll call of victims in the Bali blast
will add other governments' voices to demands for
greater security.
A US State Department report
contends a grenade that exploded prematurely on
September 23, killing one of three attackers, was
intended for the nearby US ambassador's residence in
Jakarta. Indonesian authorities insist the explosion
stemmed from a debt collection plan gone wrong, and the
location was a coincidence.
Hitting where it
hurts
The only possible motives evident in
Saturday night's blast were to kill the most foreigners
possible, to demonstrate the impotence of Indonesian law
enforcement, and/or to further undermine confidence in
Indonesia's struggling economy by hitting a major center
of foreign exchange and international investment.
If Indonesia cannot protect Bali and its
tourists, security in the country has reached a hopeless
point, and foreign investment will surely dwindle
further. Indonesia is already the only country in the
region recording annual net outflows of investment ever
since the 1997 economic crisis.
International
tourism in Bali generates an estimated $2 billion
annually for Indonesia's current account. International
hotel chains including Hyatt, Hilton, Shangri-La,
Sheraton, Four Seasons, and Novotel/Coralia represent
billions more in investment and payroll. A million
Balinese, one-third of the island's population, make a
living from tourism; up close, it's hard to believe that
official figure isn't an understatement.
Bali had been considered a safe haven in turbulent
Indonesia. Last November, Bali's police chief, Brigadier-General
Budi Setyawan, exhorted more than 100 travel journalists
to "tell travelers the island is safe and free from
extremist threats against tourists".
At
a government-sponsored conference aimed at reversing the
post-September 11 drop in tourism arrivals, he assured
the journalists that "we have security measures in place
at the airport and at harbors to guarantee no
troublemakers arrive here". Those assertions now lie in
ruins amid the carnage at the infamous Sari Club.
Near tears Sunday morning, Setyawan pledged to
resign if his officers fail to crack the case within a
month.
It is refreshing to see an Indonesian
official take responsibility for failure. Now it's time
for politicians to follow Setyawan's lead and act
responsibly to safeguard the people they purportedly
represent. The Bali blast demonstrates that authorities
cannot provide security and strong new measures are
needed, whether the threat is international terrorism or
something even more dangerous to the
republic.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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