A meeting between police, dozens of Bendesa Adat (tradtional village leaders), and people involved in the Bali tourism industry was headed up on Tuesday morning by Bali Police Chief Insp. Gen. Sugeng Priyanto to discuss the impact on public order of the series of rallies protesting the reclamation of Benoa Bay.
Based on police information, almost every Saturday and Sunday in Bali there have been public demonstrations or mass prayers to mobilize the Tolak Reklamasi (anti-reclamation) cause. These usually occur in or around Benoa and the Ngurah Rai roundabout, which are centrally located amidst tourist areas.
Priyanto says he’s not taking a position on the reclamation one way or another, but it needs to be discussed how the traffic congestion is worsened every time there’s a rally.
“First, these (rallies) give off the impression that Bali is disorderly. Secondly, the comfort level is reduced,” Priyanto said, as quoted by Tribun Bali.
“A lot of community members have been complaining about why the rallies are on weekends,” Priyanto added.
Some have even been texting police, begging them to disperse the protests.
“I’m in charge of security and order in Bali and want to find a middle of the road solution,” Priyanto explained.
So, apparently Priyanto’s solution is to recommend that we limit major reclamation protests to week days. “Why not do weekdays only, such as in front of the governor’s office? Point the funnel of the loudspeaker to the governor’s office on a work day.” We’re sure Governor Made Mangku Pastika would just love all that noise and negative attention and maybe the disturbance would perhaps motivate him to change his tune. But it seems like moving the protests to less touristy areas on weekdays would give the cause much less overall exposure.
“When in Jakarta, they protest directly in front of the presidential palace.” But this isn’t Jakarta.
On the one hand, we can see what they mean by traffic frustrations, especially so near to the airport, but on the other, this is basically the biggest disaster facing Bali today, so these protests aren’t exactly something we want of sight, out of mind, just for the sake of comfort and convenience.
