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Implications of the Jakarta Bombings
Written by Our Correspondent
Thursday, 23 July 2009
More than meets the eye here?
As the smoke generated by last week's bomb attacks in Indonesia clears
and the physical damage is assessed, the far more complex task of penetrating
the fog that envelopes all such attacks in this country has barely begun.
The 17 July bombings at Jakarta's JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels
demonstrated a level of sophistication, confidence and resources absent in
previous attacks against high profile targets in the Indonesian capital. They
also revealed an unsettling degree of ambiguity as to who may have been
responsible for attacks that specifically targeted Western business interests.
Further, the bombings exposed a major and collective security failure - both by
those charged with protecting the public and to certain extent the victims
themselves.
While the Indonesian police and other national agencies investigate the
two attacks and other incidents that may be related to the bombings, the
country's foreign business community is left to consider to what extent their
security has altered since the bombs exploded. Although many have publically
expressed confidence that the attacks will not seriously damage Indonesia's
economic prospects - a natural position for senior executives well versed in
the harm carelessly employed words may have on their commercial interests -
their more guarded views are certain to be less sanguine.
The nature, timing and presumed purpose of the attacks revealed what one
US embassy staffer characterised as a 'surgical strike' against Jakarta's
expatriate elite. Four of the nine dead were senior executives attending a
regular weekly meeting at the Marriott hotel run by the long-established
CastleAsia business consultancy. The death toll could have been far greater had
the bomb, which appears to been carried by either a willing suicide attacker or
an unwitting dupe, exploded at a slightly different angle or closer to the
presumed intended target.
No group or organization has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks,
though the police have declared the bombings to be the work of Islamic
extremists, probably from a previously undetected faction allied to or split
from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network. Most local and foreign media
and analysts were ahead of the police with this conclusion.
One the few to Indonesian or foreigners to show some ambivalence towards
this view was newly re-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (widely
referred to as SBY in Indonesia). While some foreign commentators and analysts
were quick to discount any link between the bombings and the recent elections,
SBY made a number of elliptical statements that ran counter to the rapidly
emerging 'narrative' of the bombings.
SBY is quoted as saying that those responsible were involved in a new
form of terrorism and were people 'familiar with abducting and killing and
people who once escaped the law.'
He added to the uncertainty by noting intelligence officials had
discovered plans by an unnamed group to stage a revolution in response to his
victory in the 8 July 8 presidential election, and also used a distinctive word
- 'draculas' - to describe those he thought responsible.
Later efforts to place SBY's comments in the context of his emotional
state in the immediate aftermath of the bombings were largely unconvincing and
failed to placate his political opponents who viewed his remarks as an effort
to link them somehow with the attacks. Despite calls for SBY to either explain
to whom he was referring or publically exonerate his political opponents, the
president has yet to do so.
For the international community the threat from Islamic extremists - ever
present since the October 2002 Bali attacks and four subsequent attacks in
Jakarta ascribed to them between April 2003 and September 2004 - is, or was, a
known quantity. The assumption was that as the government and the elite had as
much to lose as foreign nationals did from the attacks - until the 17 July
bombings the vast majority of casualties in Jakarta were Indonesians - the
campaign against those held responsible would be thorough and often ruthless.
SBY's 'failure' to support the narrative that Islamic extremists were
responsible for latest attacks will be unsettling as it adds a new dimension to
the threat - and one with implications that could shatter confidence in the
country's short- to medium-term future.
While there is no doubt hotels and other potential targets will once
again tighten security (the JW Marriott was seriously damaged in a car bomb in
August 2003), the obvious question for foreign business interests in the
capital is whether the attacks represent a single event or the start of a
protracted and targeted campaign against them. Another attack - even a
relatively minor incident that produced few or even no casualties - against
foreign interests would increase concerns over employee safety and could
trigger a withdrawal of both personnel and dependents.
Further, such events as CastleAsia's well-established Friday breakfast
meetings will have to be reconsidered - if not willingly by the participants
then by their companies, insurers and security advisers. The willingness of
senior business executives to routinely attend a well-established meeting at a
fixed venue may well have raised some concerns with security advisers, who are
employed to mix caution with realism, but were seemingly either ignored or
dismissed on the basis of a belief in the adequacy of the hotel's own security
measures.
It is now hard to see after nearly simultaneous bombs at two major
Jakarta hotels how confidence in such precautions can be restored in the near-
to medium-term. Creating an atmosphere of tension that requires individuals to
constantly assess risks to themselves, the staff and their families while
adding further layers of often intrusive security precautions of doubtful
efficacy, can only help increase a sense of siege - which must be presumed to
be the intention of those responsible for the attacks.
More broadly, Indonesia will now be subject to far closer scrutiny than
the recent positive coverage that has elevated the country from its status as
an economic backwater to becoming the putative second 'I' among the BRICs. The
17 July bombs will not end this ascent, but they will almost certainly slow it
as greater emphasis is placed on the impact of political divisions and tensions
on national stability than on the often overblown economic data favoured by the
country's boosters. This will leave Indonesia a hostage to unknown forces that
have just demonstrated the capability of striking as close to heart of the
foreign business establishment as it possible to conceive.
The measure of this 'success' will take some time to filter through to
the relevant data and statistics. Indications may emerge once the annual summer
holiday exodus by many foreign business executives and their families ends in
late August. The break will allow for a more reasoned assessment of the risks
posed to international personnel and their dependents, and may be measured by
such indicators as attendance rates at international schools and to lesser
extent property valuations in favoured expat enclaves.
GM Greenwood is a consultant with Allan & Associates, a Hong Kong-based
security risk and crisis management company
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