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INDONESIA
Military involved in fighting?
Allegations soldiers helping anti-Christian gangs
Indonesia’s military has admitted that some government soldiers have taken their own initiative to fight side-by-side with Muslim extremist groups against Christians in the country’s Moluccas region, but others have alleged that the soldiers are receiving official sanction from leading generals.
The admission came after television footage showed the troops fighting alongside the Muslim jihad warriors against poorly armed Christians. Associated Press Television News showed soldiers and an armored vehicle providing covering fire for Muslim fighters attacking a Christian neighborhood. “There are members of Indonesia’s military who act emotionally, either because of their family names or where they come from,” said Rear Air Marshall Graito Usodo. “This is inevitable and we admit the existence of these cases.” He claimed that the military leadership had not taken sides in the conflict.
Thousands of people have been killed in fighting in the Moluccas, a majority Christian region in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, since fighting between rival gangs began almost two years ago. Now, organized militias of Muslim holy war fighters have entered the region with more sophisticated weapons and embarked on a campaign to eradicate Christians.
A leading Indonesian Catholic intellectual has said that business and military forces led by former dictator Suharto and Defense Minister Gen. Wiranto are behind religious fighting in the conflict-torn Moluccas region.
“Behind the screen of interreligious violence there are the powerful business and military lobbies of Suharto and Wiranto; President Wahid has his hands tied,” said Prof. George Aditjondro, an Indonesian Catholic and professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. The professor said, “The old establishment of dictator Suharto and General Wiranto is fanning the flames in the Moluccas.” Suharto was dictator of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation for 35 years and was ousted in 1998.
Meanwhile, reports continued to filter out of massacres of Christians in the Moluccas and of new violence in the Sulawesi region. More than 200 homes were torched, 1,500 people were left homeless, and several places of worship were destroyed, including five Catholic churches, in attacks which broke out on August 24 against Christians in Palopo and Poso in Central Sulawesi province.
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