Ministry denies plan to demolish Hindu 'pura'

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Public Works has guaranteed it will not demolish the Aditya Jaya Pura, and asked the Hindu community to remain calm in accepting such reports.

Ministry Spokesman Bambang Utoyo also confirmed that the ministry had no intention of swapping or transferring the ownership of the plot to other parties.

"The ministry has just started to measure the land where the pura is standing. The measurement is in line with Presidential decree No. 16/1994 and the Ministry of Finance decree on the inventory of state property. We have never planned to demolish any structure there," Bambang told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

He said two meetings between officials from the Ministry of Public Works and Religious Affairs, Bakorstanas (the Agency for the Coordination of Support for the Development of National Stability) and the pura management had agreed that reports of the demolition plan were not correct. The first meeting was at the Ministry of Public Works on Jan. 15, 1996 and the second took place at the Ministry of Religious Affairs on April 3, he said.

The Hindu community at the pura said in a separate interview yesterday that it had been confused by officials' statements on the future of the pura.

Budi Andhyana, a leader of the Bali branch of the Indonesian Hindus Youth Association said many Hindus in Bali and several Non Governmental Organizations only heard about the threats to the temple from vague media coverage, exacerbated by conflicting official comments.

"We are trying to seek clarity from the various inconsistent, conflicting and intolerant statements made by the officials," Budi added.

Earlier, when the rumor of the temple's demolition started, the East Jakarta mayor, Sudarsono, said that the temple will not be destroyed until a new site has been found.

Bali Post had earlier quoted Secretary of State, Moerdiono as urging the public not to overreact to the temple's relocation because many mosques and churches have also been relocated.

"Is it not because of development that places of worship are relocated?" Moerdiono was quoted by the daily as saying.

According to Budi, Hindus objected to what they perceived as a a lightly-taken approach to relocate the temple and the lack of consideration of spiritual factors such as the landscape's propriety for having a temple and the most suitable time to build.

"Some officials' comments reflect the attitude of putting more importance on economic growth than spiritual grounding," Budi added.

On Tuesday some 50 people from Bali and Jakarta, claiming to represent Hindu, Moslem and Christian organizations, went to the House of Representative seeking clarification on the demolition reports. Yesterday they went to the National Commission on Human Rights for a similar purpose.

A spokesman for the group, Made Prenata, said that if the Ministry of Public Works wanted a plot of land, the Hindu community in Bali would give it a plot twice as large as the plot where the pura is currently standing. "The pura is meaningful to us, we want to keep it" he said. (sur/14/03)