Bali victims pawns in wider picture

TIM BEHREND, of Auckland University's School of Asian Studies, hunts for the bombers' real target.

The terrorists are back. Scenes of bombs, bodies and licking flames have returned to our lounge rooms. But this time the nightmare isn't a looping, surreal video ballet of a familiar but distant Manhattan.

Today, the stunned survivors and the panicked families of the missing speak with accents like ours; and the contorted forms under plastic shrouds are Aussie Rules footballers and Kiwi travellers kitted out for a night on the dance floor.

Who could have planned and carried out this crime? To what end? What is going on in Indonesia?

The first commentary on our screens offered a provisional answer. On CNN, the US Ambassador to Jakarta, Ralph Boyce, said: "There have been problems in Indonesia of late involving signs that al Qaeda may have been involved in activities here."

On the Nine Network, former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh agreed, calling the attacks payback for Australia's high-profile support of America's campaign against Iraq.

The two agreed that an extremist group of Indonesian Islamists, the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), headed by Sheik Abu Bakar Bashir, was the most likely candidate as the organiser of international Islamist terrorism's latest blow against the West.

While these assessments might in the end be borne out by evidence yet to surface, they can also be seen as contrary but similar arguments generated by our politics.

Boyce is arguing the merits of US President George W. Bush's pre-emptive option against evil-doers (while at the same time reminding Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri that he has been warning her for months to get busy against Islamofascist terror cells at home).

Haigh, on the other hand, is arguing, as the rest of his statement makes clear, that Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been badly advised on Australia's overly eager support of America's first strike against Iraq, and the proof can now be measured in flesh-and-blood casualties.

But there are other possible accounts of what happened that are at least as compelling. Who was the target of the attack? Piffling bombs were set off near the US Consulate in Denpasar and, a few hours earlier, at the Philippine Consulate in Menado, Sulawesi - point of entry for traders plying the waters between Indonesia and Jolo, the Islamist stronghold of the separatist Filipino Abu Sayyaf group.

Although not doing any real damage, these established the necessary political frame for the third bomb, which horribly killed nearly 200 mostly foreign tourists and injured 300 more.

It also injured, perhaps for a long time, Indonesia's tourist industry, a mainstay of the economy that brings in about $14 billion in foreign exchange earnings annually.

Was it the intention of an Indonesian group to harm Australia by dealing a fatal blow to its own economy? Or was a more likely target of the bombings Jakarta itself?

I believe it was. Whether this sudden explosion of terrorism was meant to undermine Indonesia's international prestige, its political integrity, its revenues, or something else is a further speculative step away.

But it is essential to consider the possibility that, despite our visceral first reactions, the Kuta blast was not an attack against Australia.

The Australians, New Zealanders and other nationals on the spot may have been nothing more than pawns in a strike against Indonesia itself.

It is conceivable that Jemaah Islamiyah is still the culprit in this scenario, since it seeks to disestablish Indonesia (and Malaysia, Singapore, parts of Thailand and the Philippines) and set up a new state with boundaries determined by religious affiliation, not the trading interests of European colonial empires.

It is also conceivable that an outside perpetrator is to blame, as some sources in the military have suggested.

In either case, the quick recourse to a world-striding al Qaeda and its supposed Indonesian minions is not the most convincing possibility in these hours after the tragedy.

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

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