Bali bomb dead remembered

HEADS bowed and weeping, survivors and families of last year’s bomb attacks on Indonesia’s Bali island paid tribute to the 202 people killed, as fresh warnings were issued that Muslim radicals could strike again.

Yesterday was a day of remembrance in Australia too, where most of the victims were from.

Relatives clutched pictures of their loved ones as they joined 2,000 people at an early morning memorial service on a limestone escarpment overlooking Bali’s Kuta Beach, where Muslim militants blew up two nightclubs on this day a year ago.

Up to 800 people at the Christian service were survivors and relatives, the majority from Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the worst act of terror since the September 11, 2001, strikes on the United States. In all, 22 countries lost people.

For many, the emotion of returning to this fabled tourist isle in recent days has been raw. There has also been defiance.

“If we didn’t come back they would have won. It goes to show they can’t beat the Australian spirit. We’ll keep on coming and sticking it up their face,” said Jason Madden, aged 31, who lost seven friends from Perth’s Kingsley Cats football team.

Hundreds of people also made the pilgrimage to the site where the Sari Club was once a beacon to good times but is now a shrine, dotted with scores of wreathes and flower bouquets.

Many sobbed as they read the messages of anguish from family and friends, or gazed at the photos of the dead pasted on a board that stretched the length of the empty lot.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard and leaders from Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, were among those at the memorial service.

Chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono vowed to fight terrorism. About 40 people have been caught over the Bali blasts and 20 sentenced, including three to death.

One of those on death row, Imam Samudra, said in an interview published yesterday that he had no regrets.

Indonesia has warned that Muslim militants were planning more attacks, but insisted the mainly Hindu enclave of Bali was safe.

Heavily armed police and sniffer dogs were on patrol.

“These diabolical men and their brand of evil simply has no place in our society. They belong in our darkest dungeons, locked away deep beneath our children’s playgrounds. History will condemn them forever,” Mr Yudhoyono told the congregation.

Indonesia has blamed the blasts on Jemaah Islamiah, the Southeast Asian militant group linked to al-Qaida. Security experts say it is only a matter of time before Jemaah Islamiah strikes again in Indonesia or elsewhere in the region.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff said that, while Jemaah Islamiah had suffered defeats it was still active.

“It would be foolish to ignore the fact that the organisation still exists, is still planning,” he said. “To keep the world safe, to keep the region safe you have to keep hammering it before it can carry out its next planned attack,” he said.

Across Australia, flags flew at half-mast as the country stopped to mark the anniversary.

On a windy cliff top overlooking Coogee beach in Sydney, 1,000 people gathered for the dedication of a memorial at the site renamed Dolphins Point after the Coogee Dolphins rugby league team, which lost six players.