Kusumasari Ayuningtiyas and Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata, Sentul, Indonesia – Tears rolling down her face, Chusnul Chotimah viewed an exhibit showing a white Mitsubish van similar to one that carried a huge bomb a terrorist detonated in Bali on Oct. 12, 2002, scarring her for life and killing 202 people.
The 54-year-old Indonesian, who saw the display while on a visit to a new counterterrorism museum outside Jakarta, said she couldn't help but vividly recall the horror of that night two decades ago.
Little did Chusnul know that an errand to buy food would end with her suffering third-degree burns over almost her entire body from bomb blasts.
"Finally, I could explain clearly to my youngest child, who was not yet born at the time, about what happened to me 22 years ago," Chusnul, now a resident of Sidoarjo, in Indonesia's East Java province, told BenarNews reporters as she viewed the museum exhibit.
As a terrorism survivor, she had been invited to the July 16 inauguration of the Adhi Pradana National Counterterrorism Museum by the country's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), which set up the museum.
Chusnul had brought her 13-year-old son to the museum at the BNPT complex in Sentul, about 30 km (18 miles) south of Jakarta.
On the fateful day in October 2002, three bombs exploded starting a little after 11 p.m., two of them at popular Kuta nightspots in the south of Bali.
The first one was detonated by a suicide bomber at Paddy's Bar. Almost immediately after, a white Mitsubishi L300 van carrying more than 1 ton of explosives exploded outside the Sari Club where it was parked. A third bomb soon went off near the United States consulate.
This was Indonesia's worst terrorist attack. In addition to more than 200 killed, an equal number were injured.
Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant network linked to al-Qaeda, was held responsible for this and other attacks in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, in the 2000s.
'Facility to increase patriotism'
The Adhi Pradana museum is a place to respect the victims of all terror acts and also part of BNPT's counterterrorism strategy for Indonesians to learn the importance of maintaining their country's integrity, said the agency's head, Mohammed Rycko Amelza Dahniel, at the inauguration.
"This museum is dedicated to be an educational facility to increase patriotism and awareness of the dangers of terrorism," he said.
"We hope that the museum will bring benefits so that the younger generation lives in tolerance and avoids violence."
Spanning 2,458 square meters (26,457 square feet), the institution chronicles terrorist attacks from 1948, by showcasing replicas of evidence, weaponry, improvised bombs and tools used in these violent acts.
Visitors to the museum can learn about the lives lost in such attacks and search for victims by name, location, or gender, through an interactive display. A marble monument in the heart of the museum lists the names and nationalities of those who perished.
A section dedicated to the 2002 Bali bombing includes a timeline of the attack, photographs and a replica of the bomb-laden white Mitsubishi van that wrought havoc on the Sari Club.
The roots of terrorism in Indonesia can be traced back to 1948 and the Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia (DI/TII) rebellion led by Kartosuwiryo, who wanted to overthrow the secular Indonesian republic and replace it with Islamic law. That movement is considered the precursor to Jemaah Islamiyah in the region.
According to the BNPT, terrorism involves acts or threats of violence that create widespread fear and are driven by ideological, political or security motives.
Indonesia has endured a series of deadly attacks attributed to Jemaah Islamiyah and other militant groups since the devastating 2002 Bali bombings.
These include the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, the 2009 attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, and the 2018 bombings of churches in Surabaya.
These attacks prompted the government to intensify counterterrorism measures, including the enactment of stricter anti-terrorism laws.
Nasir Abbas is a repentant former member of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) who works with the government in counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts.
He said the museum was an essential tool in educating the public about the dangers of terrorism.
"A museum is part of education, making people who might initially not believe that terrorism exists come to know and believe it, with data and tangible items that were actually used in terrorist attacks," Nasir told BenarNews.
The museum's inauguration comes on the heels of a significant development in Indonesia's fight against terrorism: the announcement this month by JI that it had disbanded.
This potential turning point has been met with cautious optimism by experts, as concerns remain about the group's motives and the possibility of continued underground activity.
At the museum's inauguration, Hadi Tjahjanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, praised authorities' success in thwarting terrorist attacks in recent years, including during the recent general elections.
However, he warned against complacency. "The decline in terrorist attacks does not mean that Indonesia is completely free from the threat of terrorism," he said.
A 2023 BNPT study identified women and youth as particularly susceptible to online and offline radicalization.
The SETARA Institute for Democracy and Peace in May 2023 released the findings of a survey it conducted with the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) on the tolerance of high school students.
The survey showed that some teenagers who were in what they termed the "passive intolerant" category had become "active intolerant" in the past five years.
In 2023, the percentage of high school students in five cities who moved from "passive intolerant" to "active intolerant" doubled, to 5%, from 2.4% in 2016.
The BNPT chief Rycko cited the survey in February at an event, according to a morningstarnews.org report.
He said the counterterror agency was focusing its effort on protecting teenagers and women from Islamic radicalization because they have become the most targeted groups offline and online, according to the survey.
"This vulnerable group is the nation's next generation," Rycko said.
Source: https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/indonesian/terror-museum-07222024163015.htm