Summit a step on the road to recovery

Summit a step on the road to recovery

Chris Brummitt, Associated Press, Nusa Dua, Bali

Embattled Balinese are hoping this week's summit of Asian leaders on the island will help lure back travelers who have largely deserted this Indonesian resort since last year's bloody terror attacks.

Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations began arriving Monday on the Indonesian island ahead of talks Tuesday and Wednesday. The leaders of China, India, Japan and South Korea are also attending.

"If it's safe enough for them, it's surely safe enough for ordinary tourists," said Ketut Sukriani, a souvenir seller at the gates of the five-star hotel complex where the talks are talking place. "Hopefully, they can tell their people that Bali is safer than last year," she said.

ASEAN chose the island venue, Indonesia's prime tourist destination, to show confidence in the country after Islamic militants bombed two nightclubs a year ago, killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Foreign arrivals dropped by more than 80 percent in the weeks after the attacks. Just as tour operators were reporting a revival in business, the regional SARS outbreak, and fears generated by the war in Iraq hit the island again.

Arrivals are still down by 20 percent over this time last year.

"This summit is a ... vote of confidence in the stability and security in Indonesia, in particular Bali," Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda said. "We can expect that a positive message can be relayed to the rest of the world."

With police and foreign governments warning that more attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation are likely, around 7,000 police and soldiers patrolled the conference venue.

ASEAN secretary-general Ong Keng Yong said hosting the summit on Bali was a "message" to the terrorists that the regional grouping would not be deterred.

"Whatever happened business must continue to be conducted and we are determined to carry on as normal as possible," he said.

Balinese courts have sentenced 15 people over the nightclub bombings. Three of the accused were given death sentences.

Like the island's thousands of other hawkers, Sukriani has seen trade in her shop -- a tiny concession selling T-shirts and sarongs -- fall by more than 70 percent since the bombings.

With the one year anniversary of the attacks on Sunday, she is hoping that the island will begin to shed its reputation for terror and regain its status as an island paradise.

In the meantime, however, the thousands of delegates and journalists attending the summit have not led to any increase in her daily takings.

"Perhaps they are all too busy," she said as a convoy carrying a senior government official sped past with sirens blazing.

"Maybe they will stop on their way home."