Balinese vent anger over attacks, storm prison

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

Frustrated with the sluggish progress in the implementation of the death sentence for three of the 2002 Bali bombers, hundreds of angry Balinese protesters stormed and vandalized a prison on Wednesday where several convicted Bali bombers were being held. The protest had little political repercussions but it sent a clear signal to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that, for the Balinese, enough was enough. The bombers are asking for presidential clemency.

The first group of protesters arrived at around 4 p.m. Initially, there were only 30 of them. Thirty minutes later the number grew to around 400 protesters."By 5:30 p.m, the number was somewhere between 1,000 to 1,500 protesters," a police officer said. The protesters came from as far as Beraban village in Tabanan regency. Yet, the majority of the protesters came from several traditional customary villages of Desa Pekraman in the Kerobokan area.

The two iron gates that stood between the prison's outer yard and the road were the first victims of the angry protesters. They shook the gates violently until both collapsed. The mob later threw the gates into a narrow gutter after jumping and stamping on them repeatedly.

They then tore down the low concrete fence that connected the two broken gates before hurling stones and pebbles onto the prison's roof. A few protesters who tried to calm the mob were soon out-shouted by their raging colleagues.

"Bali has already been destroyed. It will make no difference if we raze this prison to the ground," a protester yelled before hammering a long iron pole into a concrete slab in front of the prison. By that time, all the shops around the prison had been closed and the police closed off all roads leading to the area. "It is a natural response from a wounded community that has been treated insensitively by the central government. In fact, it is a mild response compared to the anger that is seething in our heart," a protest leader Madra Adnyana said.

The protest was held just hours after sombre ceremonies to mark the third anniversary of the bombing. The solem occasion was marked by 202 seconds of silence to honor the dead from 20 nations.

The protesters did not try to storm the prison's main gate, which was cordoned off by at least 300 riot police and dozens of plainclothes officers from the Denpasar and Badung Police.

Wearing Balinese headbands and sarongs, the crowd repeatedly yelled "kill Amrozi, kill Amrozi" during the protest held hours after the 2002 bombing survivors held a commemoration of the terror attack three years ago that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Amrozi was the most sought after bomber by the angry Balinese due to his demeanor in the courtroom, which gained him the title "the smiling bomber". The first of the three militants arrested, Amrozi was sentenced to death after the 2002 Bali bombings, which dealt a huge blow to Bali's tourist industry, the backbone of the island's economy.

Due to security concerns, the three convicts on death row, Imam Samudra, Amrozi and his brother Mukhlas, also known as Ali Gufron, had been transferred on Tuesday to Nusa Kambangan prison in Central Java. But, several other convicts responsible for the 2002 bombing are still being kept at Kerobokan Prison. Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Mukhlas have not been executed pending their request for clemency.

The incident at Kerobokan Prison was a culmination of anger and frustration of the Balinese after the island was hit by another bomb attack on Oct. 1. The bombing in Jimbaran and Kuta Square, which took place hours after the government increased fuel prices by 126 percent, killed 23 people.

Fortunately, the protest did not turn into an all out riot as police personnel succeeded in persuading the protesters to not resort to violence.

Bali is a Hindu province in a predominantly Islamic Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.