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Current Issues
The Bali Bombings: Looking for Explanations
E-Brief: Online Only issued 14 October 2002
Dr Stephen Sherlock,
Analysis and Policy
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Group
One of the first issues raised by the bombings in Bali
on 12 October 2002
is the question of who was the perpetrator. Suspicion has immediately
fallen on organisations within Indonesia
which, it is claimed, have links to Al Qaeda. While the Australian
Government’s position
is only that the bombings were clearly a terrorist attack, the United States
Government has declared that an Al Qaeda–linked group is responsible.
The fact that the Bali bombings were such large
explosions and that they occurred in an area that had previously been
free of violence does suggest that a relatively large and well-resourced
organisation from outside the province is responsible. This points to
Al Qaeda. It is important however, to
consider the many complications that may muddy an apparently clear answer.
There have been a large number of bombings and other violent incidents
in Indonesia
in recent years, and it is possible that the Bali
events may be interconnected with these developments.
Firstly, there have been repeated incidents of attacks on nightspots
such as bars and massage parlours in Jakarta
and other cities by Islamic groups
which see these places as centres of vice which must be eliminated. The
group with the heaviest reputation for these activities is the Islamic
Defenders’ Front (Fron Pembela
Islam).
Secondly, while many of these attacks have been the work of groups with
genuine Islamic credentials, renegade elements from these groups and others
operating under the guise of Islam have perpetrated attacks for mainly
criminal reasons, mainly to extort money from the owners. This phenomenon
has also become intermingled with “turf wars” and other conflicts between
rival organised criminal groups for the control of drugs, prostitution
and other lucrative activities. For example, a number of discos have been
fire-bombed in Jakarta in
the last year.
More seriously, some bombings and other violent incidents have been linked
into a complex web of political and criminal motivations, allegedly involving
the police and the military themselves. These include:
- Factions within the military opposed to reform,
in particular efforts to prosecute individuals from the New Order regime.
A bomb explosion that killed more than 10 people at the Jakarta Stock
Exchange building in central Jakarta
in September 2000 was linked to elements supporting the disgraced son
of former President Soeharto. Investigations
suggested that the materials involved could only have come from military
supplies. There have been suggestions that “rogue”
members of the military may be connected with the Bali
bombing, motivated by a desire to undermine President
Megawati Sukarnoputri.
- The military in regions of internal conflict in Indonesia, such as
Aceh,
Papua and Maluku (Ambon), where different elements of the security forces
have become involved in a partisan way in the conflict or have acted
in such a way to suggest that they are deliberately fomenting violence.
Many explosions, such as the one at an Acehnese hostel in Jakarta
in 2001, are not satisfactorily explained but have connections with
the disparate conflicts occurring in Indonesia
today.
- Elements within the security forces have also been linked with organised
criminal activities such as smuggling, illegal logging, extortion and
the drugs
trade. Some of these have taken place in the regions of conflict
mentioned above where the military and police use these activities to
finance security operations as well to enrich individual officers. The
functional separation of the police from the military has lead to turf
wars between the two organisations for the control of illegal activities.
Early in October 2002, a unit of the military involved
in a fight over control of the illegal drugs trade in North
Sumatra attacked a local police station and killed eight
police.
Two particular features of the complex situation in Indonesia
militate against easy explanations for violent incidents.
The first is that while terrorist attacks, internationally, are usually
quickly acknowledged by the perpetrators in order to gain profile and
political advantage, those behind bombings in Indonesia
have rarely claimed responsibility. This tends to breed competing, ever
more complex theories and explanations.
The second, related feature is that the various sources of conflict,
political, criminal and personal, tend to become intertwined in a way
that makes simple answers about motives and perpetrators very difficult
to discern. Thus, while one group may, for example, plant a bomb using
material obtained from the military, it may attempt to have blame shifted
to another group while expecting that a third element, their real target,
will understand the actual motive. The bombing
of the Jakarta Stock Exchange is an example of the complexities of determining
ultimate responsibility.
In conclusion, there is strong evidence suggesting that the Bali
bombings were perpetrated by a well-organised group from outside the province,
possibly with Al Qaeda or other international
connections. But investigators may well find that understanding this attack
is complicated by a range of complex forces and motivations. The lack
of unequivocal evidence adds to the uncertainty created by such acts and
increases the difficulty of ensuring that they are not repeated.
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to
Members of Parliament.
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