Bali atrocity a full-frontal attack

Bali atrocity a full-frontal attack

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Singaporeans will have two questions on their minds as they
take in the full meaning of the Bali bomb attack. The Sept. 11
strikes on New York had been like distant thunder for most,
almost surreal, despite the scale of the enormity. But Bali has
been full-frontal, very much door-step. Danger never was this
close to home.

The Jakarta media has branded the bombing Indonesia's 9/11 --
for its anticipated impact on the populace and the body politic,
and how it may finally change the leaders' thinking on internal
threats.

If the atrocity has shaken the political leadership and
security establishment out of their reverie, the Indonesian
people and Southeast Asians as a whole will, by extension, need
to contemplate the after-shocks of the event.

Singaporeans will be anxious to know if the country's
recovery, set back a bit by the weak third-quarter growth
estimates released last week, will be shaken by the consequences
of the Bali incident. They will also wonder about their physical
vulnerability: Will security, hitherto unobtrusive, get intrusive
to the point where paranoia sets in?

On the first point, trend-spotters (among them economists who
got the third-quarter estimates so woefully wrong) and
businessmen will instinctively worry about investment flows from
abroad, next to local business sentiment and consumer confidence.

These shifts need not be captive to what will happen in
Indonesian markets in the short term. Analysts there polled the
day after the Bali attacks said bearish sentiment would stimulate
inflation and capital flight in anticipation of instability. They
feared a fall in the rupiah would worsen inflationary pressures
and force the central bank to raise benchmark rates, which in
turn would endanger the recovery by choking off lending.

The damage could be contained if the rupiah fell to no more
than 9,500 to the American dollar, they said. But, as if to
confirm their fears, the Jakarta stockmarket fell 11 per cent
Monday, the biggest one-day fall in four years.

Yet, the impact could be easily exaggerated. A two- or three-
week trend-line would be a better indicator. Singaporeans'
salvation is that the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis taught
overseas investors and fund-managers that Singapore was an
economy apart from the pall that had settled on the region. There
is no suggestion in country-risk analyses of late that the
distinction has become blurred in the intervening four years,
much less discounted.

Provided there is no repeat of Bali-scale attacks, on the
island itself or elsewhere in Indonesia, and President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's government acts swiftly to get to the bottom of
the conspiracy (she has said she will), Singaporeans would be
justified in maintaining measured confidence.

As for security, there is an expectation there would be more
random checks and uniformed personnel will be more visible. More
arrests of subversive suspects are not unlikely.

As in the past, the people's faith in the ability of the
security apparatus to steer them safely through a perilous period
remains high. The people should go about their normal business.

But it pays to be alert and to report suspicious activity and
behavior. After it was disclosed by the Home Affairs Ministry
that the Yishun MRT station had been targeted by Jemaah Islamiyah
operatives, following the first wave of arrests last year,
traffic out of the station was markedly thin the day after.
Within 48 hours, it was normal again. Singaporeans are
irrepressible people.