Ambon, Poso do not echo image of RI: Cardinal

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The sectarian conflicts in Maluku and Poso, Central Sulawesi, do not reflect the real situation in Indonesia, because the two areas constitute just a small part of the expansive country, says Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja.

Darmaatmadja made the statement while on a three-day visit to the predominantly Catholic island of Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, over the weekend.

During the visit, the cardinal, along with many other bishops, including the Vatican ambassador to Indonesia, held a post-Idul Fitri gathering with local Muslims and celebrated Christmas with local Catholic adherents in the town of Sikka.

The cardinal and the other bishops were also here to inaugurate Mgr. Fransiskus Kopong Kung as Coadjutor Bishop of Larantuka Diocese on Jan. 10, 2002.

"We do not want to generalize about the national religious or sociocultural situation because every region has its own problems," Antara quoted him as saying before his departure to Jakarta on Saturday.

Poso and Ambon have been afflicted by sectarian conflict between Muslim and Christian groups since 1998 and 1999 respectively, leaving more than 11,000 dead.

Darmaatmadja, also the archbishop of Jakarta and Chairman of the Indonesian Bishop Conference (KWI) asserted that the majority of people want peace and religious harmony.

"The international community should know that the number of people who want religious harmony outnumber those who want to instigate civil unrest," he said.

The archbishop was also concerned that the media had exaggerated the conflict, giving the impression that strife plagued the country, while religious harmony across much of the country rarely gained much attention from many sides.

He said most people had remained silent but their silence should not be interpreted as supporting the violence or conflict.

Darmaatmadja acknowledged that harmony among different religious communities in Sikka and East Flores was worth noting because such situations could also be found in many other regions across the country.

He cited that the people on the island had developed a tradition of cooperation among local religious communities to celebrate their festivities and to help maintain security and order.

According to him, despite the prevalence of Catholicism, other Christian adherents and local Muslims had maintained religious tolerance and had enhanced cooperation among themselves in numerous fields.

"The Catholic Church's popularity here does not make its adherents extremists or closed to other religious communities," he said.

"We came here and witnessed that Catholics were able to live peacefully with others who hold different religious beliefs," said the archbishop.

Meanwhile, Nurmin Kung, a local female Muslim, appreciated the harmony among different religious communities on the island, saying that despite being from the minority Muslim community, she and her other Muslim colleagues held close relationships with others from other religious communities.

"We are from a Muslim family but Mgr. Fransiskus is my husband's older brother. We also share the local Catholic community's joy at the bishop's inauguration," she said.