October 12, 2010. Denpasar (KATAKAMI / THE JAKARTA GLOBE) --- In emotional scenes, about 100 relatives and friends of the victims of the 2002 Bali Bombings gathered at the monument that marks the location of the deadly terrorist attacks to remember their loved ones on Tuesday.
Many of those gathered for the solemn ceremony were members of Yayasan Isana Dewata, an association comprised of people who lost loved ones in the Oct. 12 attacks.
Many, including Ni Nyoman Rencini, wept openly. Her husband, a local travel agent, was waiting for a customer on Jalan Legian, Kuta, when he was killed.
“I have tried to let go and move on with my life,” she sobbed. “The only thing that matters to me now is how to keep on working and earning enough to raise my children. But no matter how hard I try, I still can’t forget what happened, especially during the yearly commemoration,” she said.
About 80 foreign dignitaries, meanwhile, and friends or family of the victims of the bombing gathered at Australia’s Consulate-General in Bali to commemorate the eight anniversary of the attacks.
Melinda Rio, an Australian counsel, told the Jakarta Globe that the ceremony was held in the memorial gardens of the Consulate-General lasted 30 minutes
The ceremony featured representatives from a number of foreign nations who lost citizens in the devastating terrorist attacks — including New Zealand, Poland, Japan, Switzerland, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Brazil, Denmark, Italy and Germany — as well as Australia and Indonesia.
Acting Australian Consul-General Brent Hall and Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika, representing countries that respectively lost 88 and 38 citizens in the suicide attacks, laid a commemorative wreath together, before the remaining country representatives and friends and family members of those who lost loved ones followed.
In eastern Sydney, meanwhile, there were emotional scenes as a memorial wall listing the 43 victims from the state of New South Wales was unveiled at the Bali Memorial in Dolphins Point at Coogee.
Six of those lost were members of the Coogee Dolphins Rugby League Club.
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally was quoted by the Australian Associated Press as saying that the Bali victims were innocent people.
“The victims of this atrocity were not soldiers, they had not gone to fight a declared enemy,” she said. “The innocence of those victims [and the] benign and harmless reasons for them being where they are, when they were, only underscores the savagery of those people who took their lives.”
