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Anti-terrorism scorecard: US vs
Bali
By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - Two years ago, terrorists
rocked the United States with a set of unprecedented,
coordinated attacks. Just over a year later, on October
12, 2002, a night of terror bombings on the idyllic
vacation island of Bali in Indonesia left more than 200
dead. Both attacks roused local and national leaders
into action to combat the terror threat. But that's
where the similarities end.
In the US, the
president went into hiding in the hours after the
attacks, adding to the uncertainty and panic. (Maybe the
zipper of his flight suit got stuck.) He finally emerged
to declare a global war on terrorism, warning the rest
of the world, "You're either with us or against us."
In Indonesia, the famously reticent, camera-shy
president appeared on national television promptly to
admit a mistake. Despite more than a year of denials by
government officials, the attack in Bali confirmed the
presence of terrorists in Indonesia and the threat they
posed. She appealed for domestic solidarity and
international help to fight them.
Inside the US,
heavy-handed law enforcement profiled Arabs and Muslims
as potential terrorists, targeting them for arrests and
detention without evidence or due process (unless they
were connected to the Houses of Saud or Bush). These
actions helped spur a wider public backlash against
Arabs, Muslims, and anyone who fit prevailing vague
stereotypes, such as Sikhs.
In Bali, a Hindu
enclave in the midst of overwhelmingly Muslim Indonesia,
handfuls of local hotheads targeted Muslims from other
islands for expulsion in the hours after the bombing.
Balinese community leaders swiftly denounced these
vigilantes and deployed pecalang (traditional
guards) around mosques to underline their position.
Aside from targeting Muslims, US law-enforcement
and intelligence agencies embarked on a program of
scapegoating, ass-covering, and blame-shifting over the
failures that led to the deaths of more than 3,000 in
the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Indonesia
appointed its most respected police general, I Made
Pastika, who implicated the military in the attack on a
Freeport mining convoy in Papua (see Indonesia's gold standard, September
7, 2002), to lead the investigation of the Bali
bombings.
Who is leading the US investigation
into the September 11 attacks?
In response to the
Bali bombings, Indonesia enacted an anti-terror law that
expanded law-enforcement muscle without reverting to the
arbitrary police powers in effect under its previous
autocratic regime. The law is less sweeping than the
colonial remnant Internal Security Acts still in effect
in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
The US
reacted to its terror attacks with the Patriot Act, an
unprecedented expansion of police powers that threatens
to undermine basic rights and freedoms the "war on
terror" purports to protect, beyond the reach and hopes
of any mere terrorist.
The US categorically
rejected suggestions from domestic and international
analysts that its policies and actions may have provoked
the attacks and looked to pin the blame overseas.
After its tragedy, Bali looked inward. Leaders
asked whether the island had lost its way by straying
too far from its traditional values, since an estimated
80 percent of Bali's economy had grown to depend on
tourism.
After September 11, US troops invaded
Afghanistan, where the national government hosted the
al-Qaeda network that the United States held responsible
for September 11 and previous terror attacks. A year and
half later, while Afghanistan remained in pieces, the US
invaded Iraq as part of the same global "war on terror".
Iraq's connection to the September 11 attacks, however,
existed solely in the minds of White House speechwriters
- and, largely thanks to them, 70 percent of the US
public - until President George W Bush admitted to the
fib last month.
After the October 12 bombings in
Bali, religious leaders held a pair of cleansing
ceremonies, including the sacrifice of animals, to rid
the bomb site in Kuta and the island of evil spirits.
In more than two years since the September 11
attacks, the United States has not put a single
defendant on trial, and last week suffered a major
setback in its only pending case, the action against
Zacarias Moussaoui. The US continues to detain suspects
in secret locations and deny them legal counsel. Perhaps
as a substitute for effective judicial steps, it sent
Attorney General John Ashcroft on a speaking tour ahead
of the second anniversary of the attacks to appeal for
further expansion of law-enforcement powers.
As
of the one-year anniversary of the Bali bombings, police
have arrested 34 suspects implicated in the plot. Of
them 13 had been tried and convicted in open court under
normal judicial rules, with three receiving the death
penalty, including mastermind Mukhlas, alias Ali Gufron,
last week.
You decide which country is combating
terrorism more effectively.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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