wfn.org | Resolution urges Clinton to take tough action on Indonesian conflict

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Note #6024 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

GA00076
June 27, 2000

Resolution urges Clinton to take tough action on Indonesian conflict

by Edmund Doogue

LONG BEACH, June 27–The Assembly Committee on Global Mission and
International Issues
has called on the Assembly to ask President Bill Clinton and Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright to put pressure, including suspending all U.S. arms
sales, on the Indonesian government to “end any military support for attacks
upon the Christians on Ambon,” the main island in the Molukkus in the east
of Indonesia. The last-minute resolution, submitted urgently to the
committee Tuesday by the PC(USA)’s Worldwide Ministries Division, follows a
plea to the church signed by academic staff and clergy at the Christian
University in the Molukkus, which the PC (USA) helped to build.

	The committee completed its business Tuesday afternoon. The overtures and
resolutions which it approved, embracing a wide range of international
concerns, will be considered by the General Assembly in the next few days.

	The conflict between Muslims and Christians in the Molukkus has taken many
lives and destroyed church buildings and mosques in recent months, but,
according to the message sent from Ambon on June 24 to the PC(USA), the
United Nations and other organizations, the situation is deteriorating
rapidly. Christians have repeatedly pointed out that despite the good
intentions of Indonesia’s new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, the Indonesian
military is deeply implicated in the violence against Christians.

	“The conflicts are continuing and getting worse every day, especially since
the arrival of the Jihad [fundamentalist Islamic] warriors from other parts
of Indonesia who come in by the thousands,” the message from Ambon states.
“During these last two weeks the condition is deteriorating even more due to
heavy fighting using heavy armories which destroyed several Christian
villages in the North and South Molukkus and many parts of Ambon City
inhabited by Christians. The number of disappeared people is also
escalating.

	“The Christian University in the Molukkus, the oldest university in the
province, lost its campus yesterday [June 23] after an attack by the Jihad
warriors, aided by the military personnel. Eye witnesses speak of seeing a
military panzer being driven to the campus vicinity and starting to shoot at
the buildings,” the message states. “The Jihad warriors followed with jugs
filled with petrol or kerosene which set fire to the buildings.”

	The resolution approved by the Global Mission Committee for consideration
by the Assembly urges the U.S. authorities to press Indonesia “to guarantee
the safety and rights of all minority populations and institutions in the
country.” (About 87 percent of Indonesia’s 210 million citizens are Muslim,
nine percent Christian and two percent Hindu.)

	In other actions, the Assembly Committee on Global Mission and
International Issues approved resolutions and overtures asking the General
Assembly to:

	∙ declare the church’s “opposition to U.S. plans to militarize space
and urge [President Clinton] to decide against deployment of the
multibillion-dollar national missile system because it is destabilizing and
will usher in an arms race in space;”

	∙ adopt a statement declaring that “Jerusalem must not belong to a
single people, but must be open to all, shared by two peoples (Palestinians
and Israelis) and three religions (Christian, Muslim and Jewish);

	∙ call upon Mexico’s President Zedillo and the Mexican government to
protect the lives and rights of all people in the Chiapas region and
implement the Agreement of San Andres:

	∙ protest at the continuing UN sanctions on Iraq;

	∙ commend the United Nations for designating the years 2001 to 2010
as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the
Children of the World.

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