Tourists' lives a weapon for terrorists

By ALAN PERROTT and MATHEW DEARNALEY

Tourists killed in the Bali nightclub bombing were victims of a continuing war for control of Indonesia, says University of Auckland lecturer Dr Tim Behrend.

Although the attack is already being painted as part of a worldwide Islamic campaign against the West, the lecturer in Indonesian studies said the real target was the Indonesian Government and the rich elite.

"This was not an attack on Australia," he said. "This was something within Indonesia, done for political purposes and to inflict a major wound against the country."

Dr Behrend said attacking the tourist mecca of Bali would further weaken the country's stumbling economy while also damaging the legitimacy of the Megawati Government.

Heading the list of potential suspects is Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical offshoot of the Ngruki network, which was co-founded by Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, a self-declared admirer of Osama bin Laden.

The 64-year-old's boarding school in Ngruki, Java, is claimed to be a breeding ground of future terrorists prepared to fight for a strict Islamic state incorporating Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines.

This year one of his former students, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, told Philippine police he had financed bombings which killed 22 people in Manila with money supplied by Jemaah Islamiyah.

He also led police to an arms dump containing more than a tonne of explosives and 17 M-16 rifles.

Dr Behrend said the number of deaths in the Bali attack would mean little to such radicals, who were used to thousands of deaths every year. But he warned Western Governments against pushing Indonesia too hard to make an arrest.

"Indonesia is fiercely nationalistic. They are already saying they can handle it themselves. They are no longer anyone's colony. Sending in troops or the FBI would risk making more moderate Muslims a lot more radical."

Former Wellington diplomat and political commentator Terence O'Brien also pointed to the maelstrom of domestic motives within the troubled archipelago.

Yesterday, he urged Australia and New Zealand to be sensitive to the position of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is keen not to play into the hands of fundamentalist Muslims by alienating her millions of religiously moderate constituents.

Although Indonesia was the world's largest Muslim country, its brand of Islam was generally less extremist and more tolerant than that of many other states, Mr O'Brien said.

Its thousands of islands made it notoriously difficult to govern, especially in the face of separatist groups who might find offers of cash from international terrorists difficult to refuse.

Indonesian politicians criticised for not clamping down on suspected al Qaeda associates were quick yesterday to admit lapses in intelligence-gathering, although police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said his administration had predicted Bali would become a terror target.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Phil Goff said no such prediction was passed to NZ diplomats, despite a warning from the US Embassy last week of possible car bombings on neighbouring Islamic Java.

An Australian National University expert on terrorism, Dr Michael McKinley, said his country's "reflexive rather than reflective" support of what he called questionable American foreign policy behaviour could certainly have made Australians a target.

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

Pictures from the scene of the blast

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