http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MF08Ae01.html
Jun 8, 2011 The diplomacy of terror in Indonesia By John McBeth JAKARTA - When now-outgoing British ambassador Martin Hatfull took up his new post here in April 2008, one of his earliest meetings was with businessman Rudy Pamaputra, who was upset over the way anti-terrorist barriers on a side street outside the embassy were hindering access to his golf course simulator. London had far more serious concerns. Standing on a corner of the Hotel Indonesia roundabout, one of the busiest intersections in downtown Jakarta, the three-storey embassy was already vulnerable to car-bomb attack from three sides. Worse, British Foreign Office modeling had shown that a bomb of similar size to that which had hit the Australian Embassy in 2004 would cause untold devastation to a building that was never designed to withstand a blast of that magnitude. It is not known what additional measures were taken at the time, but a year before the Australian attack the British government ordered a world-wide security review after 14 people were killed in the bombing of the British consulate in Istanbul. The current Jakarta embassy literally rose from the ashes of the original mission, which was razed by anti-British rioters in September 1963 in protest over the formation of the Malaysian federation. Pamaputra had been complaining for the past five years about how his monied clients were being inconvenienced, but things only came to a head in mid-May when he blocked the side-road with his car and then had workmen chain up and disable the boom gates as police looked on. Two days later, the Foreign Office instructed the 70-strong staff to evacuate the embassy, complaining that the city administration had failed to honor a deal which would have removed two of the gates in exchange for a more permanent barrier closer to the embassy. "We didn't get the attention of the relevant institutions," said an embassy spokesperson. "This issue is being taken extremely seriously by the highest levels of the United Kingdom government and it is clear we can not continue indefinitely under the current circumstances." At one subsequent high-level meeting in late May, a senior Indonesian official left the ambassador nonplussed by telling him it would be unrealistic for the embassy to expect to receive a 100% guarantee of protection. The stand-off illustrates the fact that while the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network may have fragmented and disparate terrorist groups now appear to have shifted their attention away from Western targets to the Indonesian police, foreign missions are not letting down their guard. With chief security minister Djoko Suyanto and Foreign Minister Marty Natelagawa now becoming involved, British officials are still trying to find a solution to a problem that stems from Jakarta governor Fauzi Bowo's contention that access to a public street can not be blocked. Until there is a satisfactory answer, most of the embassy staff will remain on the cramped top floor of an adjacent office block until a new mission is completed on a more secure site in mid-2013. The first boom gate on Jalan Muhammad Yasmin, on the northern side of the mission, was installed with city government approval after the 1998 riots that preceded president Suharto's fall from power. Two others were installed incrementally following the 2002 Bali bombing and further blasts over the next two years at Jakarta's JW Marriott Hotel and the Australian Embassy, which left diplomats and corporate executives scrambling to improve their safety measures. The United States Embassy had similar problems in the early 2000s when ambassador Robert Gelbard demanded greater security for the mission after receiving intelligence reports that Yemeni militants were planning a double truck-bomb attack on the mission. The attack was aborted, with the militants already in-country, but Indonesians refused to take the terrorist threat seriously until the 2002 Bali bomb, when Jakarta governor Sutiyoso finally relented and allowed concrete barriers to be placed across the nearest traffic lane. At the same time, quarter-inch-thick steel plates were secured across the windows of the ambassador's office and rooms occupied mostly by the political officers on the second floor of the embassy overlooking the street. Even then, however, it was only after the attack on the Australian mission in 2004 that new US ambassador Ralph Boyce was given the go-ahead to build a thick concrete wall to replace what up to then had been a see-through, wire-mesh fence. Sutiyoso may have been a former special forces general, but his argument up to then was the wall would spoil the aesthetic appearance of Merdeka Square, where all the buildings - including the presidential palace - are basically open to the road. Workmen have only now begun the long-delayed construction of a new US Embassy on the same site, which is expected to comprise two new main buildings of about eight floors each. Officials say the entire job will take five years. Lying next door to the vice-presidential compound and just down the street from the National Defense Institute, the embassy has recently acquired additional land formerly occupied by Indonesia's military police. That will give it more stand-off space, but the main concern of security planners will still be the elevated railway on the eastern side which has a commanding view of the embassy complex as it sweeps into the main Gambir station. The Australian Embassy also has plans to move in the next four years to an expansive, purpose-built property in the same downtown district of Kuningan, close to where the new British mission will be located. Following the 2004 bombing, the Australian government spent an initial $11 million on strengthening the facade and installing a blast-proof fence along the perimeter fence, then implemented what it called a "rolling program" of additional security measures. But that will be nothing compared with the new $415 million "Fortress Australia" that will feature "defense in depth" and encompass a 19,000-square-meter chancery, a sprawling ambassadorial residence and 32 four-bedroom houses for key embassy staff. John McBeth is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is currently a Jakarta-based columnist for the Straits Times of Singapore. (Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. 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