Whitford Lions and Kingsley Amateur Football Club want the former Sari Club site turned into a  peace park.
Camera IconWhitford Lions and Kingsley Amateur Football Club want the former Sari Club site turned into a peace park. Credit: Supplied/Getty Images

Anger at plan to develop 2002 Bali bombings site

Justin BianchiniJoondalup Times

WHITFORD Lions Club has expressed its anger at plans to develop the site of the 2002 Bali bombings.

With the Kingsley Amateur Football Club, which lost seven club members in the terrorist attack, the Lions have supported the Bali Peace Park Association’s move to buy the Sari Club site for the park.

Whitford Lions treasurer Keith Pearce, a past president of the Kingsley club and father of one the survivors, recently wrote to Indonesian President Joko Widodo after hearing his government was allowing commercial development.

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“To allow a five-floor commercial development on the site indicates that Indonesia has no regard for those many people who perished in the bombing and that Indonesia does not value peace,” Mr Pearce wrote.

“Most Australians support the peace park and are looking to Indonesia to demonstrate that Indonesia is now a peaceful place.

“Desecrating the Sari Club site will be an affront to those nations who lost citizens in the bombings and will devalue Bali as a place to visit. “As one of those who has lived with the pain of the thirteen survivors, including my son, and the parents of the seven who died, I am horrified that this development is taking place.

A family at the sari Club bomb site in 2005. Getty Images
Camera IconA family at the sari Club bomb site in 2005. Getty Images Credit: Supplied/Getty Images

“I regard the Sari Club site as sacred land and believe it should never be anything other than a peace park.”

The association is seeking to revoke the owner of the site’s building permit.

And the Whitford club is continuing to raise funds for the association’s aim to turn the site into a peace park.

UPDATE April 18: People heard first hand from those affected by the Bali bombings at a Whitford Lions breakfast at Kingsley Amateur Football Club on Sunday, April 14.

They also heard the efforts to turn the Sari Club site into a peace park.

Whitford Lions Club president Philip Couper and Indonesian Consul General Dewi Gustina Tobing at Kingsley on Sunday.
Camera IconWhitford Lions Club president Philip Couper and Indonesian Consul General Dewi Gustina Tobing at Kingsley on Sunday. Credit: Supplied/Bert Stray

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