AUSTRALIA: Among the hundreds of Australians expected to travel to Indonesia this week for the tenth anniversary of the Bali bombings will be friends and family of the 88 Australians who died in the blasts that killed 202 people

Record ID: 357543

  • Title: AUSTRALIA: Among the hundreds of Australians expected to travel to Indonesia this week for the tenth anniversary of the Bali bombings will be friends and family of the 88 Australians who died in the blasts that killed 202 people
  • Date: 10th October 2012
  • Summary: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (OCTOBER 01, 2012) (REUTERS) MEMORIAL AT DOLPHIN POINT, TO VICTIMS OF THE BALI BOMBING VARIOUS OF THE MEMORIAL ERIK DE HAART WALKING TO THE MEMORIAL DE HAART'S HAND ON THE SCULPTURE / ERIK'S FACE PLAQUE IN THE GROUND (SOUNDBITE) (English) ERIK DE HAART, BALI BOMBING SURVIVOR SAYING: "I turned the corner, it was utter bedlam. People were just stand
  • Embargoed: 25th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Australia
  • Country: Australia
  • Topics: Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA624TWBSAAEHHBKPN21VOEJWVL
  • Story Text: Story: Among the hundreds of Australians who are expected to travel to Indonesia this week for the tenth anniversary of the Bali bombings will be friends and family of the 88 Australians who died in the three blasts that killed 202 people on the 12th of October 2002.
    One of those remembering the lost will be Erik de Haart, who was with team mates from the Coogee Dolphins Rugby Club from Sydney, on their annual end of season holiday.
    De Haart had arrived that afternoon and was in the Sari Club on the night of the 12th of October when he decided to walk one of his team mates back to the hotel, planning to return to the night club afterwards.
    "I turned the corner, it was utter bedlam. People were just standing there in shock, the orange glow from the fire on their faces, there was lots of screaming going on, lots of yelling, lots of crying, people staggering past with cuts and bleeding from all over the place and arms hanging off them. It was just utter chaos," he said in Sydney before the trip back to Bali for the tenth anniversary.
    De Haart will be among many who make the same trip to mark what Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard said would be a "very significant time of commemoration and reflection for the nation."
    De Haart was speaking at the site on Dolphin Point in the Sydney suburb of Coogee where three memorials mark the events of October the 12th 2002. One commemorates all those killed in the blasts, another commemorates the six members of the Coogee Dolphin's Rugby Club who died.
    "The day of the anniversary is one day of the year I really dread. It's one day I'm glad that's over. I get really apprehensive about it for a number of reasons. One, I guess, there's a certain part of guilt that will never leave because I went there with those guys but I came back and they didn't," he said.
    The Australian government is providing financial assistance to the families of Bali bombing victims who want to attend the tenth anniversary in Indonesia.
    De Haart will be at the memorial service in Bali on Friday (October 12) but says is not expecting 'closure.'
    "Catharsis is probably a better word than closure," he said. "For the families they will never get closure because every time they are together there is a gap. So, how do you close that gap where your son or your brother or your brother-in-law has been? That gap will never close. There's always going to be a reminder there."
    Yet De Haart said he had forgiven the bombers.
    "I decided very early on that for two reasons, one for my own sanity and secondly to defeat the terrorists, that I had to forgive the bombers. Because the longer I didn't forgive them, the longer I lived in hatred, then the more they won."
    The co-ordinated attacks were partly funded by al-Qaeda.
    In November 2008, three men were executed for their part in the bombings, a fourth was shot by police in March 2010 and a fifth man is serving 20 years in prison.
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