Australia to help boost security at Jakarta school
Australia to help boost security at Jakarta school
Agencies Melbourne, Australia/Jakarta
Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said on Friday the Australian government would help boost security at the Australian school in Jakarta, after the principal warned it might be targeted by terrorists.
Downer said the Indonesian government was already installing security measures to protect the school, including new barriers and closing nearby lanes during school hours.
"We will help where it's necessary. We are pleased that the Indonesians are doing a number of things," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Friday. "We've got to make sure there is adequate security. We will obviously help out. We don't want the school to fall into financial ruin over this."
Penny Robertson, the head of the Australian International School in Jakarta wrote to Prime Minister John Howard and urged him to boost security around the building. She said last week that the 550 students and 44 Australian teachers at the school were at risk and noted that the school had been singled out for attacks in the past.
The students' parents were worried about security in Jakarta following a bomb attack outside the Australian embassy on Sept. 9, in which nine Indonesians were killed, Robertson told the radio on Thursday.
"Parents were saying to me: 'Why is it that the Australian government is not prepared to give us any support when the U.S. government is putting in US$2 million to the other (American) school?"' she said in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"Why isn't the Australian government recognizing that it has any responsibility to protect Australian citizens and Australian students?"
In her letter, Robertson said the school, which will remain closed until after Australia's federal elections on Oct. 9, would not reopen if security was not improved.
Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono, however, said that the police had yet to receive any request from the school to boost security.
"But if the school requests us to frequently patrol and guard the school, we will certainly comply with it," he told The Jakarta Post.
Protesters threw petrol bombs at the school in October 1999 amid anti-Australian sentiment prompted by Canberra's intervention in East Timor. It also received telephone threats in August 2000.
The school was shut in November 2002 because of security concerns in the wake of the nightclub bombings on Bali, in which 202 people, including 88 Australians, were killed. And it was named as an alternative target by a suspect in the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people.