Earlier this month, there was an anthrax scare at the Indonesian embassy in Australia. Someone sent them some white powder in an envelope, which was scary enough. Then it tested positive for bacillus. The building was decontaminated, and the staff was quarantined for twelve hours. By then, tests came back negative for anthrax.
A lot of thought went into this false alarm. The attackers obviously knew that their white powder would be quickly tested for the presence of a bacterium of the bacillus family (of which anthrax is a member), but that the bacillus would have to be cultured for a couple of days before a more exact identification could be made. So even without any anthrax, they managed to cause two days of terror.
At a guess, this incident had something to do with Schapelle Corby (yet another security related story). Corby was arrested in Bali for smuggling drugs into the country. Her defense, widely believed in Australia, was that she was an unwitting dupe of the real drug smugglers. Supposedly, the smugglers work as airport baggage handlers and slip packages into checked baggage and remove them at the far end before reclaim. In any case, Bali has very strict drug laws and Corby was recently convicted in what Australians consider a miscarriage of justice. There have been news reports saying that there is no connection, but it just seems too obvious.
In an interesting side note, the media have revealed for the first time that 360 “white powder” incidents have taken place since 11 September 2001. This news had been suppressed by the government, which had issued D notices to the media for all such incidents. So there has been one such incident approximately every four days—an astonishing number, given Australia’s otherwise low crime rate.
Posted on June 14, 2005 at 2:41 PM •
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