"Evert Buried in Peace"Evert Mocodompis left his Jakarta house on Friday for his final day of work before taking leave to be with his wife for the birth of their second child. His wife, Ratna, was not happy to have her husband leave so close to her due date but he promised her that he would return by lunchtime. He never got to keep that promise, nor to see the healthy son his wife gave birth to on Saturday, the same day his elderly father finally ascertained that Evert, a banquet manager at JW Marriott Hotel, was one of nine fatalities in double suicide bombings in South Jakarta on Friday. Having worked at the US hotel chain for several years, Evert escaped a bomb attack on the same hotel in 2003, having switched shifts with a friend that day. The friend became one of 12 casualties of the 2003 car bomb. After news of the blasts at the Marriott and neighboring Ritz-Carlton hotels reached the family, Evert’s father, Victor Mocodompis, frantically tried to contact his son by telephone but no avail so went himself to search for him among the survivors at three Jakarta hospitals. Failing to get any news or clues about his son’s whereabouts he then went to the police hospital in Kramatjati, East Jakarta, where officers were working to identify bodies from the blasts on Friday. “The police did not permit him to see the body,” Noriko Kulas, one of his cousins, said. “So he only gave information about how his son looked. Later, one of his neighbors, who is a policeman, went to the hospital and identified him. What made him easier to identify was that he still had his name badge on his uniform.” When the coffin arrived at the family home on Sunday evening, only the face was visible through a glass cover. “The corpse’s condition was so bad that the police covered his body up to the neck,” Noriko said. On Monday, Mocodompis became the first of the victims of the attacks to be buried. He was laid to rest at Tanah Kusir Public Cemetery in Bintaro, South Jakarta. Having given birth less than two days day earlier, his wife could not attend the funeral. His mother was taken to the hospital after fainting during the service. Victor Mocodompis said during the funeral that he and his family have already forgiven the murderer. Quoting from the Bible, he said that hatred should not be harbored.
Author: The Jakarta Globe
