> Thanks for the pointer. How's this playing in Australia?
>
> Doug
It is absolutely huge news. All news channels have been running extra segments, there are constant updates, there is a hotline set up for people to call, the newspapers are completely packed. A a good place to look is the Sydney Morning Herald's website:
and the national broadcaster, the ABC:
The death toll is now over 180; 30 of them are Australians. There are still 180 Australians missing. It is the largest death toll of Australians in a terrorist attack ever, even larger than 9/11.
John Howard, who has cut his career in soft racism and the unwillingness to even mutter "sorry" to the Aborigines has come out looking very human (it's hard to do that when you are Bush's footstool, so kudos to him) and even proposed a national sorry day. The striking irony of it is lost, I fear, on most people: he has always said it was not up to him to say sorry, since we cannot bear responsibility of past generation's actions, but saying sorry now appears to suggest we bear some responsibility for the present atrocity.
The latest news is that they found C4 plastic explosive residue in the area, which indicates a link either to Al Qaeda or the Indonesian army, or both.
It is worth noting that this latest strike is not so out of character for Indonesia. It is a violent place. Several thousand people have been killed over the last couple of years, and in places like West Papua, Borneo and the Mollluccas, the Army is in cahoots with Laskar Jihad, another fundamentalist group which carries out serious atrocities. There have been several sophisticated bombing attacks in Java - assassinations rather than mass murder; and Soeharto's family was implicated. Bali was an island of calm in an archipelago of raging storms. It has been very hard for Australians not to see the latest attack as a bolt from the blue directed at them, but that does not seem to be an interpretation warranted by recent Indonesian history.
My guess - and it is only a guess - is that this latest strike as very little to do with Australia's foreign policy, and everything to do with embarassing the Megawati government and to strengthen the Army's hand. That has been perfectly successful. Indonesia has already moved to pass an anti-terrorism legislation that gives (back) sweeping powers to the Army, more than they already have, though that may seem hardly believable.
I should also relay that there is a mild outrage here about the fact that Bush took two days to issue a comment about the bombing. Interestingly, this is in line with the recent tippy-toeing around the terrorist attack in Yemen; suddenly the Bush administration has become shy on terror. Perhaps because it has the effect of diverting attention from Iraq: that is certainly what happened here. The day after the Balinese bombing, 35,000 people took to the streets in Melbourne in a demo which had been coincidentally scheduled . The organisers were shocked, as they expected far fewer people. One of the main messages to come out of the protests was the foolishness of attacking Iraq when there is this serious problem over here. (I have mixed feelings about this. Though I doubt anyone will call for bombing Jakarta, there has been unanimous support for the "tough" new measures giving power to the Army.)
Thiago Oppermann
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