wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Dying for God, killing for God

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Note #8426 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04310
July 14, 2004

Dying for God, killing for God

Christian-Muslim combat making a holy hell of Indonesia

by John Filiatreau

AMBON, Indonesia - It started on a January morning in 1999 as a petty dispute
between one Muslim and one Christian.

		Naturally, the story comes in two versions. The Christians
say a young Muslim street tough tried to shake down a Christian mini-bus
driver for 500 rupiah, an amount roughly equal to an American nickel. The
Muslims say the driver caused the trouble by refusing to pay a debt of a
similar size to the owner of the vehicle, a Muslim.

	Whatever. All agree that words were exchanged, long knives were
unsheathed, and things got out of hand.

	The toll, so far, is about 10,000 people killed; at least 15,000
injured seriously; 25,000 houses burned to the ground; 1,250 churches,
mosques and other public buildings destroyed; and more than 500,000 people -
a quarter of the population of the Moluccas, the fabled Spice Islands - made
to live in squalid camps and barracks far from their ancestral homes.

	Thousands of Moluccan Christians (and, reportedly, hundreds of
Muslims), have experienced "forced conversions," escaping death by renouncing
their faith. In many Christian-to-Muslim conversions, newly made Muslims,
male and female, have had to prove their sincerity by undergoing ritual
circumcisions performed by Islamic clerics.

	Virtually no one has been punished in connection with any of the
murders, bombings and arson fires. Of the handful of suspects who have been
arrested, virtually none has been convicted of a serious crime. In many
cases, Muslim suspects have been turned loose after jails were stormed by
angry crowds.

	In the five years since the initial "trigger incident,"
Muslim-Christian violence has flared up on dozens of other occasions, and the
Christians are getting the worst of it - partly because thousands of "jihad
fighters" from outside Indonesia have come to the Moluccas and introduced
ever more sophisticated tactics and weaponry.

	 Three months ago, in the latest outbreak of what Moluccans call "the
conflik," 40 people were killed, about 2,600 families lost their homes, and
Indonesian Christian University in the Moluccas was burned to ashes, along
with its 200,000-volume library and its priceless and irreplaceable
collections of artifacts of the Moluccan and Indonesian cultures.

	The April violence was the first major break in a peace that had
held, with occasional brief but deadly lapses on both sides, since May 2002,
when government-sponsored talks in city of Malino resulted in a cease-fire,
and Moluccans of both faiths danced in the streets to celebrate the end of
three years of bloodshed.

	Now, however, Ambon once again looks as if it has been bombed, with
whole neighborhoods reduced to scorched foundations and piles of rubble. The
faces of its people reflect an unsettling mixture of fear and menace. The
city's air, normally perfumed with clove and nutmeg, smells like ashes.

	Over the next week or two, the Presbyterian News Service will be
publishing stories about the causes and consequences of the violence; the
experiences of some of the victims, survivors and refugees; the efforts of
Presbyterian Church (USA) partners to help some Christian survivors; and the
effects on the Protestant churches in these troubled parts of Indonesia.
Other stories will take a new look at East Timor, which suffered similar
violence before attaining independence in 1999.

	Today: The causes of the most extreme interfaith warfare on the
globe; what it has to do with the presidential election; an ancient
peacekeeping system is overwhelmed by modern hatreds; the widow of a pastor
martyred for his faith.

	Next: How the Protestant church in East Timor is faring five years
after independence day; the death and resurrection of a Timorese evangelist.

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