Within hours of a terrorist bomb ripping through the front of the highly fortified Australian Embassy in Jakarta last Thursday, theories about the motive for the attack began to fly thick and fast.
One was that, in the context of the current election campaign, the bombers intended this mayhem to play directly into Australian politics, in the manner of the slaughter in Madrid. Another was that the attack was aimed at disrupting the September 20 Presidential election run-off in Indonesia, which Megawati Sukarnoputri is widely tipped to win. Morbid as it may sound, some maintained it was just "an anniversary celebration" of 9/11.
There were also cynics who went to the extent of suggesting that this was a Godsend for Prime Minister John Howard, much akin to the al-Qaeda attack on the US on September 11, 2002 and Australia's own the "Tampa incident", both of which played a decisive role in Howard's win in 2001.
Whatever the immediate motive for the horrific atrocity in Jakarta last week was, the indisputable fact is that Australia has now become a direct and deliberate target for radical Islam.
The Bali bombing two years ago was first believed to have been directed against Australians who frequented the Sari Club, but that theory crumbled during the numerous court cases that followed. The view now is that Bali, and then the Mariot Hotel attacks were on targets identified as generically Western rather than specifically Australian.
But there is little doubt that the Embassy bombing was aimed directly at Australia. It is the first time the country has been so deliberately singled out in Indonesia. And experts believe that this is only the beginning of the radical Islamic campaign of revenge against Australia, widely seen as a major US ally in the war in Iraq - a war that is deeply despised in the Muslim world.
In claiming responsibility for the bombing, a Jemma Islamia message posted on an Islamic website the day after the incident said, "We decided to settle accounts with Australia, one of the worst enemies of God and Islam." It warned the bombings would continue unless troops were withdrawn from Iraq. "The attack is the first in a series", the statement said. " We advise Australians in Indonesia to leave this country or else we will transform it into a cemetery for them."
Terrorism experts both in Australia and the US are almost unanimous in their view that this chilling warning is not to be taken lightly. The Lowy Institute's Alan Dupont said that, "most likely they would look to do this again, probably against Australian interests in another part of South-East Asia." Dr. Zachary Abuza, a terrorism specialist from Simmons College, Boston agreed. "You are going to see more attacks against Australian targets across the region.' he said.
Indonesia's police chief also revealed last week that the same group that bombed the Australian embassy had planned to assassinate the Justice Minister Chris Ellison, Federal Police Commissioner Mick Kelty at the opening of the Australian funded Indonesian Terrorism Investigation Centre in Semarang, central Java, on July 3. They were thwarted because of the extra security.
Although the JI has been smarting over the vital role played by the Australian Federal police in flushing out over 200 associated with the Bali and Mariot bombings, with 30 of them already convicted, the main cause of anger against Australia is its support of the US in Iraq.
Prime Minister John Howard has consistently fended off suggestions that our part in the war in Iraq has increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Australia and Australian interests elsewhere. But experts disagree.
Alllan Behm, a former head of the Defence Department's international policy and strategy division said Iraq had made Australia a target of extremism. " There are more people with more anger seeking to direct their anger at us because they believe, rightly or wrongly, the Iraq war is a war against Islam", he said.
Warren Reed, a former officer with the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, who ran the Indonesian desk for two years, said he too suspected Australia had placed itself in danger by joining the US invasion in Iraq. "I think we have been a bit too up-front there for a country of this size. I think this might be one of those chickens coming home to roost", he said.
It is now clear, if ever there was any doubt, that JI, the regional offshoot of al - Qaeda has Australia and its interests in South-East Asia in its crosshairs because of its continued involvement in the Iraqi war.
But was the Embassy bombing, in which 11 people died and over 200 injured, timed to influence the outcome of the October 9 Australian elections, as was the pre-election train bombing in Madrid last year?
Until last Thursday, the election campaign has steered a more conventional course. But for one overwrought intervention by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, on the lessons for Australia of the Russian school massacre, the Coalition and Labour have confined the battle to the bread-and-butter issues of jobs, interest rates, taxes, family payments, health and education.
But the gruesome spectacle of the mangled gate of the Australian Embassy and the shattered bodies outside cannot but change the dynamics of the election campaign and add a much higher degree of unpredictability to its outcome.
Even if this was a crude attempt to sway voter sentiment in Australia, the important calculation is not what the terrorists set out to achieve, but how Australians want their leaders to respond. So far the leaders of the two major parties have acted with restraint, resisting the temptation to exploit the attack for political gain.
This is both a question of decency and apolitical imperative, as the most pointed lesson of the Madrid bombing last year was that voters punish those who seek to manipulate terrorist acts for party political profit. Both Mr. Howard and Mr. Latham have so far acted with admirable bi-partisanship, using the incident only to pledge help to Indonesia and the countries in the region to fight Jemma Islamia and its splinter groups vigorously and relentlessly.
As for the suggestion that the bombing was a God-given for John Howard on the eve of an election, the reality is that this time there isn't the same level of passion, ignorance or fear among the voters that John Howard used so cleverly and cynically in the 2001 elections.
Most people in Australia want our troops withdrawn from Iraq, as the Labour Party has promised. They don't see getting out of Iraq as caving into terrorism either because, as events in the past year has shown, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism.
In fact many Australians believe that the war on terrorism has been damaged by the diversion of the focus from Afghanistan and efforts to destroy al-Qaeda, which enjoyed wide international support, to the occupation of Iraq, which has attracted substantial international opposition. Our participation has also diverted financial and military resources unnecessarily to a distant theatre of war at a time when our true security priorities lie in our own region.
The latest atrocity, coinciding with the anniversary of 9/11 is also another reminder that terrorism is a universal evil. In our region, Jemma Islamia is the kingpin of terrorism. It is as much a threat to Indonesia as it is to Australia. (The dead and the injured in last week's attack and the Mariot Hotel bombing earlier were overwhelmingly ordinary Indonesians.)
In the short term, everything must be done by both Australia and Indonesia to capture and punish those responsible for the Jakarta bombing. The long-term solution lies in eradicating the hardships, poverty and disenchantment of those who remain easy converts to the fanaticism of its perpetrators. Australia needs to find more ways to contribute to Indonesia's amazing but still fragile transformation into a democratic society.
(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2004/09/14/opinion/5.asp)
