Ismira Lutfia
Suicides in Bali Up Since 2002 Bombing
The main selling point for tourists in Bali may be the calm and serenity it offers, but residents there have been committing suicide at a rate of more than 150 a year, a Bali psychiatrist said on Sunday.
There were 158 suicides in 2008 and 153 the previous year, according to the Suryani Institute for Mental Health, which deals with mental illness in Bali.
“The root cause of this problem is the 2002 bomb attack, which continues to affect the local people negatively,” said Luh Ketut Suryani, a psychiatrist at the institute.
While the institute’s records show more than 150 suicides in each of the past two years, state news agency Antara has said that the Bali Police recorded just 134 cases in 2008 and 109 in 2007.
According to Suryani’s records, 2004 was the worst year in terms of deaths, with 180 people committing suicide.
Suryani said that the island’s inability to regain its former glory as a tourist destination following the first bomb attack in 2002 has been a major factor in the high suicide rate.
The second bomb attack in 2005, and other disasters like the 2004 tsunami, SARS and avian flu, have also taken their toll on Bali’s economy.
“The hotel room rates have dropped sharply even as the cost of living remains high,” she said, adding that Balinese are also increasingly being forced to compete with newcomers in the tourism industry.
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Simon
3:00 PM September 4, 2009Whilst I think any suicide is a tragedy, the fact is that Bali's tourist industry is bigger, in numbers and money earned than ever before. The current high season is the biggest on record, bigger than last year's one, which in itself was a record. So it's hard to blame the 2002 bomb.
But the sad fact is that less and less of the huge money being earned by the tourist barons is being returned to the people of Bali. Most of it goes to the Java, or to the very small number of Balinese who own the clubs and restaurants. One of these places, Kudeta, was charging several thousand dollars to hire a lounger at one of it's parties, which is just obscene when it's staff are paid a small fraction of that.
The wages of Balinese have not increased in any real sense since 2002 despite the fact that the cost of living has gone up many times since then. Bali is now a very expensive place for even many tourists, let alone some poor hardworking Balinese trying to survive on Rp250.000 a week as many do.