AAP Newsfeed
BALI INDONESIA, October 12, 2003: On a mountaintop in Bali, the grieving and injured found some solace today from the horror of the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian, a year ago today. For the 550 Australian survivors and family and friends of the dead, it was a time for both private mourning and tribal solidarity. The commemoration service was carried out in a harmonious fusion of beliefs and cultures. While it was a predominantly Australian affair, there were no exclusive national rights to grief at today’s memorial service at Jimbaran. Men and women from 22 counties were killed and their compatriots — from New Zealand to Denmark, from Brazil to South Korea — came up the mountain to remember them. Twenty-two candles were lit in a remembrance pool. The setting was a vast Hindu temple hewn from a limestone escarpment and semi-enclosed by huge 82-feet-high rock walls. Towering above the space, which accommodated a crowd of more than 2,000, was a bronze eagle, or Garuda, and to its right an equally dominant Vishnu. The commemoration service, which was largely tailored to the wishes of the Australian families, was predominantly Christian, with acknowledgments to Hindu Bali and Muslim Indonesia. A major theme was unity in diversity through shared loss. This was put eloquently by Indonesia’s Political Affairs and Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyone. In an echo of Kemal Ataturk’s famous elegy to the Allied fallen at Gallipoli (a huge World War I military disaster for the Australians), he said: “Never mind their nationality or race, they are our brothers and sisters.” He also read from the Koran. Ross Tysoe, who was Australian Consul-General in Bali when the bombers struck, read out the 199 known names. It took 14 minutes. The families walked from the temple area to a reception past a wall bearing the photos of all the dead.