Word: kuta
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Like many who live through a tragedy, 24-year-old Putu Suameria has his own story of survival. A Balinese bartender at one of the numerous bars that line the alleyways near Kuta's nightclub strip, Suameria usually has Saturday nights off and spends them hanging out in front of the Sari Club, drinking beers and watching the foreign clubbers come and go. But on the night of October 12, he took a second shift to cover for a friend. The overtime saved his life. The car bomb that destroyed the Sari Club and killed 191 people was parked...
...Certainly, the Balinese seem committed to rebuilding. Walls in Kuta are em-blazoned with banners declaring "Bali means peace", "We love Bali" and "We will start again." Construction at the bomb site is already underway; hammering and the whine of electric saws disturb contemplative mourners and the curious who venture there. What was once the Sari Club is now a vacant lot, the crater filled with offerings, notes, candles and bouquets. Burning incense barely conceals the acrid smell of burnt metal, but at least the odor of charred flesh has dissipated. A few doors down, souvenir stalls offer...
...Once packed with pale Australians on winter holidays and German package tour groups, the sands of Kuta Beach are deserted. The hawkers offering massages, manicures and marijuana outnumber visitors five to one. Even the Kuta cowboys, the infamous Javanese gigolos who prowled the beach for lonely hearts and fat purses, seem to have disappeared. As one vendor puts it, "There is no one for them to gigolo with." Pitana grimaces at the mention of the cowboys. "We don't need that kind of business anyway," he says, referring to both the gigolos and some of the seedier bars. "Because...
...send their children to school?" If the tourists don't come back, or another bomb hits the region, Wiranatha knows that as a last resort, he can always return to his family farm to grow rice. Suameria, the bartender, has no such escape plan. After spending three years in Kuta, he shudders at the thought of returning to his home village on Bali's north coast. "The tourists will just have to come back," he shrugs. "There is no other...
...charged with any crime related to the attack in Bali, although he is being questioned about a string of bombings during Christmas 2000 that left 18 dead, an alleged plot to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and immigration violations. The police do acknowledge that the attack in the town of Kuta in Bali was organized and executed on a regional scale. According to Aritonang, funding for the car bomb is believed to have originated from Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia in cash and electronic transfers. (Amrozi bought the van in East Java but paid in a combination of Malaysian ringgit and Singaporean...