Buddhist group vows loyalty to RI

Buddhist group vows loyalty to RI

JAKARTA (JP): A Buddhist group, whose members are largely of Chinese descent, reaffirmed their loyalty to Indonesia Saturday and promised to support the government's assimilation drive.

The leaders of the group, Niciren Syosyu Indonesia, said they planned to launch an assimilation campaign in Riau and West Kalimantan in two weeks time.

The Buddhist group pledged their loyalty in response to Vice President Try Sutrisno's statement last week regarding the need for the Chinese members to abandon Chinese culture and assimilate with the locals. Try delivered his statement during his visit to the West Kalimantan capital of Pontianak.

Rusdy Rukmanata, deputy coordinator of the Niciren Buddhist center, acknowledged that many Chinese members are active in international organizations of Chinese in exile.

"Many defend their exclusive lifestyles and fear to lose their Chinese identity and culture while others join international Chinese mafia organizations. This all makes it even more difficult for the Chinese to mix with indigenous people," he said.

But he asked the government to clarify the culture they should adopt. "We are often confused with the term 'national culture' because the nation consists of thousands of ethnic groups with different cultures," he said.

Djanuanto, another official at the Buddhist center, said that Niciren Syosyu Indonesia in cooperation with the Ansor Youth Movement, a Moslem organization under the 28 million-member Nadhlatul Ulama, would conduct a program aimed at socializing the Indonesian language and national culture among isolated Chinese communities in the hinterlands of West Kalimantan.

He said 30 percent of West Kalimantan's population of 442,000 are of Chinese origin and a majority do not speak Bahasa Indonesia.

According to Djanuanto, China's alleged involvement in the abortive coup attempted by the now-outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and today's domination of the local economy by the ethnic Chinese were affecting the assimilation drive. (rms)