wfn.org | WCC ecumenical team visits troubled Indonesia

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-007
WCC ecumenical team visits troubled Indonesia

by Kathryn McCormick
(ENS) A joint World Council of Churches (WCC)/Christian 
Conference of Asia team that recently visited troubled Indonesia 
has called on the Indonesian government urgently to identify and 
bring to justice those responsible for the burning and destruction 
of places of worship, as well as violence involving Christians and 
Muslims.

The nine-member team, which toured the country and talked 
with President B.J. Habibie during its seven-day stay beginning 
January 27, said it was puzzled at the delay in identifying the 
perpetrators of such religious hostility in a country that had 
long been proud of its religious pluralism.

The group acknowledged that the Indonesian violence seen as 
religious hatred has roots in other places, particularly the 
country's economic slide over the past two years. 

"The fault line here is the insecurity caused by the 
country's  sudden  plunge into poverty," said Patrick Mauney of 
the Episcopal Church's Office of Anglican and Global Relations, 
who was not part of the recent WCC team but who visited Indonesia 
early last year.

He pointed to the country's economic woes beginning in 1997, 
when the ailing Asian economy sent the value of Indonesia's 
currency plunging by as much as 80 percent, leading to bankruptcy 
and financial disarray that forced the country's once-prosperous 
middle class into poverty. Indonesian President Suharto and his 
family, which controlled billions of dollars' worth of industry 
there and often was perceived as corrupt, lost its grip as riots 
flared over food prices and political dissatisfaction. Suharto resigned 
last May, naming his vice-president, Habibie, as his successor. 

"Without the `glue' of Suharto," Mauney said, "the country 
started falling apart." The violence initially may have pitted 
religious groups against each other, "but it's not simply a 
religious conflict anymore." The world has seen the same kind of 
`ungluing' occur in the recent past in both Northern Ireland and 
the former Yugoslavia, he said.

Despite Habibie's pledge to start reforms, rioting flared in 
Indonesia again in January, as Muslims and Christians battled with 
flaming arrows, rocks, machetes, and clubs. Dozens were killed.

The WCC/CCA visit came in the wake of concerns raised by 
delegates from Indonesian churches at the WCC's Eighth Assembly in 
Harare, Zimbabwe, last December. The Assembly promised to send an 
ecumenical team at the earliest opportunity. The 10-member team 
looked into the destruction of churches and other religious 
violence as well as the continued attacks on the ethnic Chinese 
minority and struggles in specific Indonesian provinces where 
there have been moves toward independence.

The team, headed by the Rev. David Gill, head of the 
National Council of Churches in Australia, did not include an 
Anglican, owing perhaps to the fact that Indonesia  has what 
Mauney described as a very small Anglican presence. Members ranged 
from representatives of the United Evangelical Mission in Germany 
to the Hong Kong Christian Council.

In their report, they said that the situation in Indonesia 
is one of absolute confusion in which religion and ethnicity have 
been exploited by various power elites. No one is sure about the 
future, they said, noting that more than 200 parties have 
registered for the parliamentary elections scheduled in June.

They said they were encouraged to hear of Muslim neighbors 
who had provided shelter to Christian families under attack and of 
Muslim young people who had protected a church from destruction.

Indonesian President Habibie told them he would try to bring 
the perpetrators of violence to justice, the team said, but 
according to their report he added, "I am involved in Mission 
Impossible."

After its visit, the group called for a resolution to the 
violence; resolution to the demands for self-determination in the 
provinces of East Timor and Irian Jaya; better ways to attack the 
country's sudden, widespread poverty, and an easing of the 
conditions imposed on Indonesia by international creditors such as 
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

--Kathryn McCormick is associate director of the Episcopal 
Church's Office of News and Information.

http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens