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ABC News
National

Locals endure restricted freedoms as world leaders come to Bali for G20 summit

Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia

World leaders are gathering at the highly anticipated G20 summit this week in Bali to discuss big issues faced by the world.

The Indonesian government hopes the event will not only boost the country's global diplomatic standing, but also provide an economic boost in the wake of the pandemic. 

But to ensure the event's success, Bali Governor Wayan Koster has imposed restrictions on the local residents around the Nusa Dua area, where the conference is being held.

They include the temporary reintroduction of some COVID measures, road closures and a localised ban on fishing.

And while the inconvenience is considered a tolerable by some people, others say the benefits are not worth it.  

'It is still manageable'

While the summit is underway, workers have been asked to return to working from home and students are back to studying online.

This means extra work for Eka Jayanthi, a mother-of-two who has to help her children to review materials before their classes start.

"The challenge is how I have to clean up the house while still supervising the kids with their Zoom meetings," she said.

"But it is still manageable."

With restrictions in place, Ms Jayanthi also has to skip attending religious ceremonies in her village as the roads to the G20 venue are closed to non-summit traffic. 

However, she said she did not mind making some small sacrifices knowing the event only went for a week. 

"This is an event that makes us proud to be an Indonesian, especially because the conference is held in Bali," she told the ABC.

"We truly support the event."

Headmaster and owner of the Lentera Hati School, Wahyu Prasetyaning Tyas, said some parents had been critical of the decision to temporarily go back to online learning, but generally the response had been "amazing".

"I educated the students about how we have to be proud to be in Jimbaran [the area next to Nusa Dua]  and explained to them what G20 is about so they realise they have become a part of it," Ms Tyas said. 

The country's Minister of Investment, Luhut Bindsar Pandjaitan, has already apologised for the disruption caused by the G20.

"We didn't mean to make it harder for you, but sometimes we can't avoid these things," he told a press conference.

"It's not that [the restrictions] aren't allowing you to leave home, but we are urging activities to be done at home that were possible during COVID-19."

Some win, some lose

Yoga Iswara, head of Bali's Indonesian Hotel General Manager Association (IHGMA), said he was "certain" the summit would help the local economy.

"Compared to the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund organisation in 2018, the [economic] impact of G20 could double that," he said.

Mr Iswara said restrictions on the number of regular flights to Bali as the government prioritised summit guests had not significantly affected local hotels' occupancy rates.

"Even in areas like Nusa Dua, Jimbaran and Seminyak the occupancy rate has increased because of the G20 activity," he said.

But while the tourism sector might be getting a boost, fishermen like I Nyoman Dana have been told not to work at all. 

Last weekend, the police asked him and other fishermen at Mentasari beach in Sanur, a seaside town in Bali's south-east, to "support" the G20 event by not fishing close to the Nusa Dua area.

Mr Dana, who has been a fisherman for at least 30 years in Bali, estimated he would have earned at least three million rupiah, or almost $300, during the week, which he said was "a sizeable amount of money for fishermen". 

"We can't do anything because the government has asked us to support them," he said.

"Of course we are affected by this but we can't protest openly … we support the government, although we are at loss."

'No impact' for the marginalised

I Nyoman Mardika, coordinator of pro-democracy civil society group Prodem, said he believed only the big tourism companies would benefit economically from the summit and that mid-lower class Balinese would miss out.

"There will be no impact felt, either directly or indirectly, by the local marginalised people in Bali, because from our understanding the international events are only for big financiers and tourism groups, which is elitist in nature."

He added that based on past experience the outcomes of the summit's agenda would not benefit them either. 

He also accused the government of banning civil society groups from holding discussions about the conference to educate locals about its agenda.

Environmental activist Gendo Suardana said the restrictions on local people's freedoms during the event were not justified.

"People are being arbitrarily restricted without any urgency, making it feel like there is a G20 pandemic," he said.

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