Paradise shattered

Published : Nov 04, 2005 00:00 IST

Terrorists strike in the island of Bali again, upsetting the Indonesian government's strategic and economic calculations.

P.S. SURYANARAYANA in Singapore

FROM being the pretty face of Indonesia's social pluralism, the island-resort of Bali has now come to be viewed as a "very dangerous place".

What really has occasioned this dim assessment are the serial explosions in Bali on October 1 - the most serious terrorist attack there since the carnage on October 12, 2002.

Such a grim judgment is invariably accompanied by expressions of empathy with the Balinese and by furious condemnations of the terrorists, widely reckoned to be misguided "Islamists". The Balinese, mostly Hindus in the world's largest Muslim-majority state which spans a sprawling archipelago south of the equator, are not at all blamed by Australia and other neighbours of Indonesia for this sorry state of affairs. After the latest tragedy, which claimed the lives of at least 19 persons, there is also a better appreciation of the possible reasons why these suspected "Muslim terrorists" have made Bali a favoured terrain for their deeds.

According to Asia-Pacific diplomats and opinion-makers, two major factors explain the choice of Bali. First, it is seen as no coincidence that the idyllic island of Bali, whose tourism-based economy suffered after the 2002 terrorist assault, had once again become a preferred haunt for Western holiday-makers, especially Australians, just prior to the new strike. The second and equally important reason is Bali's strategic value in the calculus of the terrorists. Bali being a mainly non-Muslim territory, the "collateral damage" in any attack on Westerners and their interests on that island would not affect Indonesia's majority community. So runs the argument, adduced not by any known terrorist outfit but by those seeking to make "sense" of the latest terrorist outrage in Bali.

Unlike on October 12, 2002, when the attacks were carried out at some bustling primetime clubs past midnight, the latest strikes - one at the Jimbaran beach resort and the other at a restaurant at Kuta (not far from a blast site in 2002) - occurred during the relatively less preferred early hours of the night itself. This pointed to the possibility that the primary aim of the terrorists this time was not so much to cause extensive devastation as to send out the political signal about their being "back in business" in Bali. In some significant statistical contrast, not really a matter of solace for the civilised world, the 2002 blasts had killed 202 persons, almost 10 times the number this time.

As on the earlier occasions - the 2002 Bali bombings, the blast at a luxury hotel in Jakarta in August 2003 and the explosion outside the Australian Embassy in the Indonesian capital in September 2004 - the initial official versions of the latest tragedy, too, left room for questions over the modus operandi of the terrorists.

While car-bombings or remote-controlled detonations dominated the early theories about the previous terrorist strikes in Indonesia, a police squad, which combed the scenes of the latest blasts, was first reported to have detected some unexploded bombs as well. While this was suggestive of a rather conventional terrorist strike, there being no indication of even a car-bombing, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was more categorical in his assessment on October 2.

After visiting one of the blast sites near Denpasar, the Balinese capital, Yudhoyono maintained that the early forensic evidence pointed to the distinct possibility of suicide-bombings. However, until almost the third anniversary of the 2002 Bali bombings, the identity of the suspected suicide-bombers, whose remains were salvaged from the blast sites, were unidentified.

Nor did any group claim responsibility immediately after the new blasts. For good reason, the Indonesian authorities, too, declined to join the speculation game of the tribe of anti-terror freelance experts in South-East Asia. The non-official experts, however, required no magnifying lenses to detect the political signature of Jemaah Islamiyah (J.I.), the suspected affiliate of the "ubiquitous" Al Qaeda in South-East Asia. For official Indonesia, though, such a definitive assertion was politically uncomfortable.

The Indonesian authorities, for their part, are upset on three counts. First, Bali's new wounds can really put the clock back on Jakarta's ongoing efforts to turn the ailing national economy round through several measures, including a revival of the tourism-boom on that island. Not surprisingly, therefore, a ranking Indonesian official lost no time, during the initial mourning, to appeal to the international community not to shun Bali in the wake of the new blasts there.

Bali's value to the Indonesian economy is inestimable. In one sense, the non-Muslim identity of Bali, whose passion for the Ramayana and the wider Hindu heritage is variously shared by other Indonesians as well, suits Jakarta's strategy of developing the island as a "safe haven" for foreign tourists. The largely unstated but quite obvious reason is that Bali can serve as a magnet for the external tourists, even if some "puritanical" Muslim activists were to try and render the other parts of Indonesia less attractive than now as holiday destinations.

The second important reason for Indonesia's frustration is that its appeal to the United States, first made in August 2003, has remained unanswered until at least 10 days after the latest episode of terror in Bali. Soon after the U.S.' secret agents, in association with the local authorities of Thailand, nabbed Riduan Isamuddin (better known as Hambali) at his "hideout", Jakarta asked Washington for access to him for interrogation. A prime terrorist-suspect and a presumed leader of the J.I., Hambali is an Indonesian national.

Jakarta has consistently argued that Hambali, one of the suspected "masterminds" behind the 2002 Bali bombings, should be made available for questioning by the Indonesian officials, too, if any meaningful anti-terror strategy for the future is to be evolved at all. By not responding and not citing any reasons for this, the U.S. has remained wary of Indonesia to this day, despite an upturn in bilateral relations after a dramatic slump.

Not surprisingly, in this context, Marty Natalegawa, a top Indonesian official and spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, told Frontline, soon after the October 1 terrorist strike, that Jakarta "calls upon the international community to stand by it in this hour of tragedy". He drew attention to the fact that Indonesia, for its part, had stood in "solidarity" with the global community in its new anti-terror campaign in recent years.

The political message from Jakarta could not have been clearer. The U.S. should help promote Indonesia's anti-terror strategies by granting it access to Hambali, at least now. Jakarta's external critics, however, argue that the Hambali case cannot be allowed to become an "excuse" for any inaction on the part of Indonesia in fighting terrorism.

The specifics of Jakarta's anti-terror strategies bring into sharp focus the last but not the least of the Indonesian travails on this front. Yudhoyono, who was the Senior Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs in October 2002, maintained, even after the Bali bombings then, that there was no hard evidence for the existence of the JI itself in Indonesia. For him, the challenge now, as President, is to take a hard and fresh look at the evidence that has become available in the past three years, and decide how best to proceed in regard to this sensitive question.

Closely linked to Yudhoyono's J.I.-related dilemma is the political disposition of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who has seen the brighter side of Indonesia in its dark hour of the latest Bali bombings. In 2002, Howard wanted Indonesia to launch an anti-terror campaign with "unrelenting vigour" and also "unconditional commitment". In sharp contrast, this time, he sees the latest bombings as the sign of an attack on the "democratic [and] stable" Indonesia.

In Howard's view, Yudhoyono, who came to power over a year ago, is an outward-looking leader with a moderate vision of Islam. These are aspects that the West, led by Australia in a sense and in this case, wants to sustain and promote, although the U.S. has so far shown no sign of treating Yudhoyono as an equivalent of the "moderate Musharraf" in South-East Asia.

The central question, in regard to Yudhoyono's anti-terror campaign, is the extent of the J.I.'s political influence and physical network within Indonesia, which has come a long way in passing enabling laws and also arresting and sentencing suspects since the Bali tragedy of October 2002. Significantly in this context, Howard has demanded, at the time of writing, that Yudhoyono should outlaw the J.I., although such a step alone might not serve as an insurance against potential terrorist attacks in Indonesia.

On a related matter, Australia and some others have expressed dismay over the recent remissions, described by the Indonesian authorities as simply "general [and] automatic" actions, in regard to the judicial sentence imposed on Abu Bakar Baasyir (Bahsir in the more conventional Islamic parlance). He is the presumed patron and political-spiritual leader of the J.I.

At another level, Indonesia is looking at the possibility that some extra-regional terror groups, besides those presumably linked to "Azahari" and "Noordin" of Malyasia within South-East Asia, might have been either the architect or an "outrider organisation" behind the Bali bombings. This is evident from Indonesia's refusal to "speculate" about the identity of the culprits in the absence of hard evidence. Some "Pakistanis" were among the early suspects after the October 2002 bombings.

While the J.I. issue might, in some ways, determine Indonesia's credentials, its "leadership role" in South-East Asia has also come into renewed focus in the new context. Drawing upon the symbolism of Indonesia's national emblem of "Garuda", a scholar, Donald E. Weatherbee, has portrayed Jakarta as a "wounded phoenix" in a struggle to "find wing" and play a meaningful foreign policy role. Indonesia is seen to have already had at least one phoenix-like resurgence after the Sukarno era.

In the perspective of Michael Leifer, a "legendary" scholar on South-East Asian affairs, Jakarta is prone to engage its neighbours with "a sense of regional entitlement", given Indonesia's size and resources. This aspect, too, is now on test, as Indonesia's neighbours, more especially Australia which lies on the periphery of the South-East Asian political space, want to engage Yudhoyono on anti-terror issues in a "candid" fashion.

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