JAKARTA, 17 July 2009: Nine people died in the bomb explosions at the JW Marriott Hotel and Ritz Carlton Hotel in the Mega Kuning commercial area here today, said Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Security, Widodo AS.
He said the explosions within two minutes of each other, happened at 7.45am and 7.47am.
“These were highly-explosive bombs,” he told reporters in front of the damaged JW Marriott Hotel.
Widodo was accompanied by Indonesian police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri, National Intelligence chief Syamsir Siregar and Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo.
Widodo was quoted as saying by the local media that the first explosion occurred at the lobby of the Marriott and followed by the second at a restaurant of the Ritz Carlton.
According to him, six were killed in the bomb explosion at the Marriott and two at Ritz Carlton, while one died at the Medistra Hospital.
He, however, at the moment declined to link the incidents to terrorism and wanted a thorough investigation to be conducted first. — Bernama
Gopal Raj Kumar says
It always begins with that benign bribe, that letting someone off the hook as a favour that later snowballs to becoming the rule rather than the exception.
You then have a state within a state. The former being a state of corruption where the rule of law is subservient to the rule of power in the latter.
It all began with the selective treatment of Indonesians according to their economic social and political allegiances. The military eventually took over and slaughtered over 3.5 million people for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the embodiment of the rule by power and producing a bizarre perfection where the use of force was motivator.
It was a theme and an ideology that was used to protect a select minority who used the army as a “legitimate” bulwark against the masses. A neighbouring state banked the blood money of the thugs in power.
By believing that the overthrow of Suharto would put an end to the misery of 200 million average Indonesians, the world got it all wrong. So too did the political pundits.
Malaysia is now at the crossroads of its political development. Like Indonesia, its political, legal and moral institutions are in decay. But they are still able to project an image of prosperity and stability because the middle classes still don’t get it. They continue to resort to populist language and have suddenly discovered their consciences as a tool to sound righteous. Their vocabulary now consists of words like Orang Asli, Kadazans, Muruts and Dusuns, mere words thrown into the mix like confetti to the wind which on closer examination is nothing more than punctuations in a argument still short on substance.
There is a stygian anger lurking in the background of the political landscapes of southeast Asia’s most populous nation. It is already exploding (pardon the pun) and it will now only get worse.
Noordin Top suspected of being the cliched Mastermind of the Bali and now the Sheraton and Ritz Carlton hotel bombings is a Malaysian [who] represents the more radical of the disenfranchised. They need not be nor are they exclusively Muslim. That’s a convenient definition more readily acceptable by corrupt administrations to scare the pants off the wantonly ignorant everywhere.
Malaysia must act at every level. Opposition has to be a little less self serving and dramatic relying on rumours to score brownie points.