Avoid Bali for time being says Goff

By BERNARD ORSMAN

New Zealanders should defer travel to Bali until the situation on the Indonesia tourist island settles down, says Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff.

He said it was not considered necessary to put on special flights to bring home New Zealanders wishing to leave Bali.

"We are anticipating that commercial flights will be able to cope ... but we are obviously watching that situation."

The number of New Zealanders on the popular holiday island is unclear.

But, going by calls to six lines on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' hotline - 0800 432 111 - Mr Goff said there would be hundreds at the very least.

He said the American Embassy issued a warning last week that Islamic extremist groups were planning car bombings in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta and the capital, Jakarta.

But they did not happen, said Mr Goff, who was in Yogyakarta last week, and there was no warning that a strike might be made in Bali.

He was in Yogyakarta, and Bali, for a South West Pacific meeting of representatives of Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and New Zealand. Co-operation against terrorism and concerns that groups within Indonesia had links to al Qaeda were among the major issues discussed.

Indonesian officials in the past have denied that militants linked to the al Qaeda terrorist group are active in the country.

However, authorities in Malaysia and Singapore have claimed that a group known as Jemaah Islamiyah - which wants to set up a fundamentalist Islamic state in South-East Asia - has members based in Indonesia.

Singapore has been pressing Indonesia to arrest Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, who lives in Indonesia.

Mr Goff said the region had been encouraging Indonesia's Government to take action, but, because the country was Islamic, its Government was being cautious about arousing the enmity of fundamentalists. "But this [the Bali carnage] may well lead its Government to take a harder line against terrorism within Indonesia," he said.

Asked if New Zealand would step up security, particularly for events like the America's Cup, in response to the Bali bombing, Mr Goff said the Government had tightened security in many ways that were obvious and some that were not.

"Whether this latest event leads us to take further action will depend on the intelligence that we get on who may have been responsible and whether this is a threat that could extend to New Zealand," he said.

Airport security was tighter; another $30 million was being spent on border protection, customs, immigration and policing; intelligence activities and the sharing of information with like-minded countries had increased; and legislative and practical help had been set up for the war on terrorism.

Only last week the Government passed tough anti-terrorist legislation with the backing of all parties in Parliament, except the Greens.

The Terrorism Suppression Act makes it a criminal offence to take part in, finance or recruit for a terrorist organisation and outlaws terrorist bombing.

Mr Goff said the bill was passed in the face of Greens' foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke calling it an hysterical reaction to terrorism.

"I made the point that I thought terrorism was the greatest contemporary threat to the security and safety of the world," Mr Goff said.

"The thing about terrorism is that it can strike against anybody, anywhere, at any time.

"Sadly, this has borne out that concern I had."

Bali messages

New Zealand travellers in Bali, and their families in New Zealand, can post messages on our Bali Messages page.

Foreign Affairs advice to New Zealanders

* Travellers should defer travel to Bali

* NZers in Bali should keep a low profile and remain calm

* Foreign Affairs Hotline: 0800 432 111

Feature: Bali bomb blast

Related links

Pictures from the scene of the blast

Further reading
Feature: Indonesia and East Timor

Related links