Business as usual at int'l schools, but security upped

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With government pledges to guarantee the safety of the expatriate community and to protect their interests and assets following the war in Iraq, international schools here continue to operate.

British International School principal Peter Hoggins said the school remained open and that the Indonesian government had sufficiently secured the school.

"The school will remain open next week. (However) should there be a deterioration or a change to security there is a possibility of temporary school closure, an option of which we're not pursuing at this moment.

"We're just watching the situation of security in the city closely," he told The Jakarta Post in an interview on Friday.

He added that security had been heightened on the campus following the Bali bombing last October and that the school had close cooperation with the police as well as the police Mobile Brigade.

It was also business as usual at the Jakarta International School and the Australian International School.

The U.S.-led war to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, which started on Thursday and also involves British and Australian troops, has outraged some people here, who are calling the offensive against Iraq an attack on humanity.

Jakarta witnessed on Thursday and Friday a number of demonstrations staged outside the U.S. Embassy, which will likely continue in the following days. Protesters also plan to rally outside the embassies of other countries that support the war.

Penny Robertson, the principal of the Australian International School located in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, said the school had received government help in securing the campus, where police patrol around the clock.

Other security measures will be taken based on "day-to-day check on the security condition in the city", she said.

"The school, like many Australians, believes that this war is not one against the people of Iraq, nor is it a war against Islam," Robertson told the Post at her office, expressing hope that the war would soon be over.

The school became a target of attack in 2001, when two people riding a motorcycle threw a grenade into the schoolyard. There were no casualties. The case remains unsolved.

Robertson said there was no worry of possible security problems in the school's neighborhood.

All international schools here have Indonesian students, staff members and employees, who, according to Robertson, are making a great contribution in keeping the campuses secure.

Headmaster of the Jakarta International School, Niall Nelson, wrote on the school's website at www.jisedu.org on Thursday that all school campuses would be open as usual "unless security advice received in the interim causes us to change this posture".

The school's management could be reached for comment.

However, according to a secretary at the headmaster's office, since the school is closed on weekends, any policy regarding security could only be decided on Monday.