Episcopal Press and News
WCC Ecumenical Team Visits Troubled Indonesia
Episcopal News Service. February 19, 1999 [99-007]
(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.