Trouble season for Indonesia's
Bali By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR - In the beginning, Bali had a
wet season and a dry season. When Western artists,
actors and anthropologist Margaret Mead came in
the early 20th century, Bali added tourist season
to its calendar. Now, courtesy of Police General
Senarko Danu Ardanto, Bali has a fourth season:
the island's top cop last week declared the start
of "trouble season" on what Travel & Leisure
magazine still calls "the world's best island".
Islamic extremist bombers have hit
multiple targets on Indonesia's tourist island of
Bali twice in Octobers past. Attacks on
nightclubs on October 12,
2002, killed 202 people, the majority of them
foreign tourists. Suicide bombings of popular
restaurants last year killed 20, plus a trio of
bombers. General Ardanto's force is deploying
1,000 additional officers, hoping to avoid a
three-peat. Even if peace prevails this
October, the 2002 and 2005 attacks mean a lasting
case of trouble in paradise. The shadow of those
blasts rises every October as Australia's emerging
national signature event – the public memorial –
comes to Bali. Balinese have done their Hindu
cleansing ceremonies and largely moved on.
Indonesian authorities tolerate these now annual
happenings and occasionally provide a VIP guest,
but these are Australian moments to remember its
88 nationals who died in the 2002 tragedy.
Previous October 12 bombing commemorations
have included survivors, relatives of victims, and
even Australian Prime Minister John Howard. The
memorials help reinforce Howard's assertion that
Bali is Australia's September 11. But like much of
Australia's interaction with its giant neighbor,
the impact on Indonesia is an afterthought and
Jakarta's reactions a side-effect.
Canberra's Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade reportedly planned to scale back the
pathos last year. But when suicide bombers struck
again - killing four Australians among the 23 dead
- the Howard government decided to make another
major show at Bali's Ground Zero at Kuta Beach.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer attended to
demonstrate Australia was not intimidated by an
attack on someone else's soil.
Captured
documents from terrorist operative Azahari bin
Husin revealed a plot to attack last year's
October 12 ceremony, but the plan was reportedly
abandoned due to security concerns. This year,
though, the Australians are going lower key, in
line with the government's warning against
unnecessary travel to Indonesia due to the
likelihood of attacks.
This October's pair
of commemorative services are invitation only,
private affairs away from the bomb sites, with no
government incentives for the injured and families
of the deceased to revisit. Victims attending the
October 1 memorial, at a luxury hotel, were mainly
Indonesians.
Star season The
foiled attack on the commemoration ceremony last
year is reason to mark this 2006 "trouble season"
with a star.
The Muslim holy month of
Ramadan this year coincides with the bomb
anniversaries. Last year, Ramadan began just
before the October 12 anniversary, and just after
the October 1 attacks. Perhaps Bali police can
believe they've withstood the first danger points,
but there's no relief until the calendar turns.
Elsewhere in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim
majority state with at least 180 million of its
estimated 220 million people adherents to the
faith, Ramadan has on occasion provided an excuse
for Islamist violence.
Just ahead of
Ramadan, the government chose to execute a trio of
Christians convicted for inciting the killings of
Muslims in central Sulawesi in 2000. That
immediately put the focus on Amrozi, Iman Sumudra
and Mukhlas, the Bali bombers of 2002, who are all
awaiting execution. Balinese marched last week to
demand that their death sentences be carried out,
but the Poso executions may actually make the Bali
executions more, not less, difficult.
As
Indonesia struggles with the meaning and practice
of diversity, particularly for religious outliers
such as its 40 million Christian minority - larger
than the entire populations of Australia and New
Zealand - and Bali's 3 million or so Hindus, the
Bali and Poso executions were seen as a pair,
mixing revenge with loss for each camp. In that
scenario, executing the Bali bombers first would
have made more sense. It would antagonize the
Muslim majority, but the subsequent killings of
the three offending Christians would salve the
wound.
Problems with the executions go
beyond timing. The Poso convictions are widely
considered a miscarriage of justice. Using those
last three words for a headline, a recent Jakarta
Post editorial stated, "The [Poso] executions will
be remembered as part of the tragedies besetting
the country's efforts to uphold justice for one
reason: they took place while there was
insufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
that the three uneducated men were the masterminds
of the violence."
In comparison, the Bali
bombing prosecutions were applauded as
professional both in Indonesia and overseas, and
the accused have not denied their roles -
questioning only whether they deserve to be
punished or rewarded for jihad against infidels.
Nevertheless, widespread questioning of the Poso
death sentences makes it easy for Islamic
extremists to raise questions about the Bali
bombers' sentences.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir,
the cleric jailed for his role in the first Bali
attacks, told reporters, "[I]f you ask me which
one is more dangerous, nude women or the Bali
bombs, then my answer would be the women showing
off their skin." You don't have to be an Islamist
extremist or misogynist to imagine that if the
Poso verdicts were the product of a flawed system
and thus a miscarriage of justice, then the Bali
bomber verdicts could be, too. Even Australia
has called Indonesia's administration of the death
penalty into question, at least when it comes to
Australian defendants. (See None dare call it
hypocrisy, Asia Times Online, September
13)
Real victims still
pained Amid the attempts by Islamists and
Australia's serial commemorators to hijack the
Bali tragedies for their own purposes, the real
victims of the bombings are often forgotten. The
Balinese - and the thousands of other Indonesians
and foreigners on the island who rely on tourism
for their livelihoods - are still reeling.
Bali's economy depends on tourism for more
than half of its income and jobs. Tourism cratered
after the 2002 attacks, but by late 2004 it had
rebounded. Last year, visitor arrivals were
running at a record pace before last year's
suicide bombings. Those blasts, even though the
toll was relatively small and overwhelmingly
local, may have a more lasting impact than the
2002 bombings.
The second strike showed
that beyond any doubt Bali is a primary target for
Indonesia's Islamic terrorists. The tourists are
foreigners, the Balinese are Hindus, and the
attacks attract international attention. No other
part of Indonesia offers that winning combination
for terrorists.
The immediate effect of
the bombs last year wasn't as steep as in 2002 - a
43% drop in tourist arrivals the immediate
aftermath, versus 57% in 2002. As expected, the
gap narrowed, reaching a mere 11% by April. But
since then, the gap has widened: in the prime
tourist season months of July and August, arrivals
were again off by more than 20%.
The
biggest components in the fall have been
Australians. Their arrival numbers are down 56%.
Terror attacks combined with drug arrests are
tipped as the reason for the dramatic drop.
Whatever the reason, Balinese just wish the
Australians would quit remembering so damned much.
For Balinese tourism, it looks like a long, lonely
trouble season.
Gary LaMoshi has
worked as a broadcast producer and print writer
and editor in the US and Asia. Longtime editor of
investor rights advocate eRaider.com, he's also a
contributor to Slate and Salon.com, and a
counselor for Writing Camp,
www.writingcamp.net.
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Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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