A new object now stands at the 1,500-square-meter plot in the heart of Kuta, where the Sari Club once stood and the first explosion went off during the 2002 Bali bombing: a blue and pink development sign.

“Restaurant and monument development project,” the sign reads, to the dismay of survivors and the families of the tragedy’s victims.

The sign says that PT Hotel Cianjur Asri plans to build a 700 sq m restaurant on the plot.

The site is one of two locations where 202 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in a coordinated attack by violent extremists on Oct. 12, 2002.

“The sign was just installed this morning,” Febi, a local resident who runs a food stall on the otherwise empty plot, said on Thursday. She said she was told to vacate the site by May 5.

Since the 2002 terrorist attack, most of the plot has been turned into a parking lot, where a handful of food stalls have opened shop in the last few years. Just across the street stands the Ground Zero memorial, where locals and foreigners alike can pay their respects to the victims of the deadly attack.

But now, the owner of the plot has secured a building permit from Badung regency to develop the site into a 350-seat restaurant to be called the Spatula Restaurant.

“We already have all the paperwork,” said Dewa Jati Negara, who represents the landowner, confirming the development project. The permit was issued on Dec. 21, and construction was expected to start very soon.

Dewa said a Hindu ceremony would be held on May 9 to mark the ground breaking. “The owner will build a five-story restaurant, wich has a [Bali bombing] museum on the top [floor],” he told The Jakarta Post.

However, the plan has been met with criticism by survivors and the families of victims.

“We have struggled for last few years to turn the site into a memorial park, but then we suddenly heard that the owner of the plot had a building permit to build a restaurant there,” said Thiolina Marpaung, a survivor.

Thiolina was traveling by car on Jl. Legian Kuta when the first bomb went off in front of the Sari Club. She suffered serious injuries and would have lost her vision, if not for the seven operations she had in Australia.

Thiolina said she hoped very much that a memorial could be built on the site “so we can [continue to] pray together”, and that visitors to the site could learn about what transpired that fateful day.

The Bali Peace Park Association, a Western Australia non-profit organization, had made concerted efforts to turn the site of the Sari Club into a “peace park” — a project that was also backed by Canberra.

The monument is a dream shared by many Australians and Balinese since the tragedy, in which at least 88 Australians were killed.

Thiolina said that survivors from Indonesia and Australia had worked very hard to negotiate with the landowner in acquiring the plot for the peace park. However, the parties had not arrived at an agreement.

“We deplore the [Badung] government’s decision to issue a building permit after all the hard work [we have done] to build a peace park on the site,” she said.

The landowner’s representatives had instead offered to erect a monument on the top floor of the planned restaurant under a 100-year lease agreement for Rp 50 billion (US$3.5 million).

The offer was simply unacceptable.

“Can you imagine that we need to go to the fifth floor to pray? I don’t feel comfortable with that, as we are still traumatized by the incident,” said Thiolina.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has even taken to Twitter to criticize the move. “The decision by local Bali authorities to provide a permit for an entertainment complex on the site of the Bali Bombing where 88 Australians were murdered by terrorists at the Sari club [sic] site is deeply distressing,” he tweeted on Thursday.

He said Australia would continue to push for the establishment of a peace park on the site for “remembrance and quiet reflection”.

“Our Consul-General in Bali has been working tirelessly to resolve this issue,” Morrison wrote.

“The Australian government will continue to work with the Indonesian authorities to seek to resolve this issue and ensure the memories and families of all those who were murdered in that shocking terrorist attack are properly respected,” he wrote in another tweet.

Dewa insisted that the landowner had no intention of building a night club or any sort of entertainment complex on the site. “It is a restaurant selling international food, not a night club,” he said. (tjs)

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