Arson suspected at Bali NGO offices

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post/Denpasar

Arson was suspected on Tuesday after fire damaged the fence of a two-story building in Denpasar, Bali, which accommodates the offices of nine non-governmental organizations.

The fire occurred on Monday night, hours after NGO activists and students held a meeting in the building to discuss a plan for a demonstration at Udayana University against the controversial bill on the Indonesian Military (TNI).

The owner, Ngurah Karyadi, said the fire was apparently a deliberate attempt to burn the building down following the meeting, which ended at 9 p.m.

The building, located on Jl. Tjok Agung Tresna, houses the offices of the Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI-HAM), the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP).

The Public Information and Social Advocacy Institute (LIMAS), the Forum for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (Forda UKM) and the Alternative Work Information Network (JIKA) also rent space in the same building for their offices.

Denpasar Police chief of detectives Comr. Wawan Ridwan said on Tuesday that his office had yet to receive a report on the fire.

Karyadi said that no one was inside the building when the fire gutted its two-meter-high bamboo fence. "Previously, there was a guard at the building, but during the incident, it was vacant," he said.

Fortunately, the fire did not spread to a nearby straw-roofed kiosk, which is only one meter away from the fence.

If the kiosk had caught alight too, the fire would quickly have spread to the two-story building as it was partly made of wood, Karyadi said.

It was unclear at what time the fire started but an eyewitness, Ayu Komang Riyani, said she still saw smoke rising from the fence at 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

Initially, the cause of the fire was suspected to have been an electrical cable for a garden lamp, which was suspended on the fence. However, Komang said she found matchsticks tied together with a five-centimeter length of solid mosquito repellent inside the fence.

Karyadi said the discovery of the matches showed that an attempt had been made at arson, which, he added, was related to a meeting that discussed plans for a protest against the TNI bill.

"It's just like the old methods used by the New Order regime," he added.

Karyadi said he would report the fire urgently to the local police for investigation.