Smoke billows from the JW Marriot after the 7:45 AM explosion
Several conspiracy theories immediately surfaced, with one theory pointing to a politically motivated bombing in light of a successful presidential election and the other to the apparent resiliency of the Jemaah Islamiyah extremists, whose group's capability was severely crippled by the government's total commitment on crackdowns on its organization.
Whatever the truth is, let us pray for the victims and their families. Our hearts and thoughts go to all of the people affected by this tragedy. They don't deserve this, and they deserve justice. I hope the government this time around will act with extreme measures and expunge all elements of chaos from Indonesia once and for all. All enemies of Indonesia die.
I want to particularly stress that this terror act is NOT representative of Indonesia's general population. Sadly, due to a few rogue individuals and extremist groups with their own twisted agendas, Indonesia has been more often than not associated with a terrorist state. This can be no further than the truth. A dominant majority of the 235 million people here in Indonesia just want to live their lives peacefully, free from terror and guaranteed by basic human rights. Here in this country, life is already hard - there is absolutely no reason to make it harder. So the entire Indonesia, not just a specific interest group, right now bleeds from this tragedy.
A parody of the Manchester United's ad in Indonesia. "Mau?" is Indonesian for "Want it?" Originally aimed for enticing people to attend the event. Most Indonesians are die hard soccer fans.
Manchester United, England's popular soccer team, immediately canceled their trip to Jakarta. MU was to play against Indonesia's All Star team on Sunday and was to stay at the Ritz Carlton.
Having said that, I do think that there are a couple of things that the government and security agencies should really do to prevent future things like this from happening again.
First, although the first thing I notice when I arrive in this country was how tight security is, it's mostly superficial and a formality at best. Everywhere you go in this town, they have security check points for your car and your body. When you enter any parking, they'll do a stop and search. They'll check inside the car to see if there's any suspicious passenger or package, and they'll check the trunk, and they check for the underside of the car using a mirror stick. However, more often than not, I see them quickly opening the door and closing it, pop in their heads for a second or two without really checking the inside of the car. It's as if they're performing a routine, opening and closing the car doors so fluidly and quickly. Crafty terrorists would most definitely get away with hiding explosives on the underside of the chair, inside the car's cavities, etc. They need better explosives detection tools, like sniffing dogs or just a better, thorough search.
And then when you get to the entrance door, they either have metal detector gates or sticks. But are they effective?? Most of the time the guards just swipe purses and bags with their sticks nonchalantly, not even bothering to stop the person to get a better look inside their bags or waiting for a beep from their devices. I personally have never been caught with carrying my pocket knife, which I carry with me everywhere I go. Not once did I get caught or even stopped. Not long ago, there was a case where a business man was being robbed at gunpoint at a luxurious shopping mall in Jakarta. How the heck did you NOT catch a gun??
So hopefully after this they'll really step up to the plate and do a better job all around. It's really a tragedy that things like this has to happen for anyone to learn their mistakes.
Another problem lies in the recruitment of these security officers. Businesses should safeguard against employing terrorist moles, where they can potentially work together with external terror elements. Since labor is cheaper here, turnovers are high and there needs to be a better system at filtering quality guards. The government should also work with businesses in background-checking these potential gateways to terrorism and provide joint training in counter terrorism.
The government should also look hard within its organization bodies to make sure that there are currently no "moles" providing back end support to these elements. Mole cases are rampant all over the world, at all government bodies. These guys pose the biggest threat, because their powers make it hard to detect them and they're usually the mastermind if not the ring leaders for most of the larger operations.
Lastly, the government should really beef up a clandestine domestic counter terrorism units, setting up and installing as expansive spies and informants networks as possible throughout the country. Indonesia is actually really good in intelligence, I have seen its full potential realized during the Suharto presidency era. At that time, intelligence was used for the wrong reason, like squashing dissents and tracking down underground opposition movements, but it's proof that Indonesian intelligence is more than capable to proficiently and successfully conduct an operation.
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