Concern, regrets over riots

JAKARTA (JP): Tiptoeing around a potentially explosive issue, government and religious leaders were circumspect in their reaction to the bloody ethnic strife that rocked Jakarta on Sunday with most expressing regrets and concerns on Monday.

The strongest reaction to the Ketapang incident, which left 14 people dead and saw 13 churches torched and damaged, instead came from The Vatican.

"The Holy See is very worried about the as yet fragmentary news reports that are arriving from Jakarta," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told journalists, Reuters reported.

"We cannot but condemn the facts we have learned, which are also harmful to Indonesia's traditional principles of tolerance, guaranteed by its Constitution," he said.

In Jakarta, President B.J. Habibie expressed his deep concern at the conflict, which saw mobs attacking people of Moluccan ethnic origin and also rampaging crowds destroying churches and Christian-run schools in and around the Ketapang district in Central Jakarta.

Habibie pledged that the government would help to rebuild the damaged properties.

Minister/State Secretary Akbar Tandjung said the incident was the result of provocations by certain individuals who did not wish to see political stability in the country.

However, he did not name the individuals.

"The President said he was very worried by the incident and called on the whole nation to show restraint and not to be provoked by rumors especially those related to religious questions," Akbar said after meeting the President at Merdeka Palace.

The Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI), which began its annual meeting on Monday, regretted the incident and called on all religious communities not to be easily provoked by divisive rumors.

"Such an incident could incite people to riot, and they will become suspicious of one another..."

"As a nation, all religious communities should be open to dialog to solve problems in a peaceful and fair manner," KWI Chairman Monsignor Josef Suwatan said.

Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja, the Jakarta Archbishop, expressing regret said he suspected that the incident had been organized to serve the political interests of certain parties.

"It's difficult for me to accept that these attacks on churches were spontaneous reactions to a rumor that a small mosque had been torched," he said.

If they were spontaneous, how could these attackers have come from far away districts in Jakarta at such short notice, he asked.

If these attacks were indeed premeditated, "this means that the people have been exploited for political purposes. What's even worse is that religious issues have been politicized.

"And if the incident was indeed planned, our sense of national brotherhood is not as bad as we imagine it to be. But the political play behind the incident is indeed serious," he said.

The Communion of Churches in Indonesia regretted the incident not only because of the deaths and damage to these houses of worship, but also because of the failure of the security apparatus to prevent them.

"We are very deeply concerned because the incident occurred in a country where equality of all citizens and their rights and obligations are guaranteed by the law, and where the state is obliged to protect its citizens," PGI Chairman Sularso Sopater said.

He said he hoped the security apparatus would respond in a firmer manner to such attacks on people and property in the future.

He urged all religious communities to respect pluralism and to promote mutual tolerance.

The Solus Populi Christian group in Jakarta expressed its deep concern, noting that the incident bore similar hallmarks to past attacks on churches in Situbondo, East Java, and Tasikmalaya, West Java.

Hermawati E. Taslim, the group's chairperson, found it an irony that the Ketapang incident took place two days after the informal meeting of religious leaders at the residence of Abdurrahman Wahid, chairman of largest Moslem organization Nadhlatul Ulama, in Ciganjur, South Jakarta.

At that meeting, the religious leaders present warned about certain people exploiting religion for political interests.

The Indonesian Ulemas Council said the incident had nothing to do with religion-linked rivalries.

United Development Party Chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum urged the government to investigate the tragedy thoroughly, especially its masterminds.

Metareum said some of the rioters had removed PPP flags and banners from the streets, and used them during the attacks, giving the impression that some party members took part in the riots. "That is utterly untrue," he said. (rms/prb/emb)