PGI warns against 'high cost politics'
JAKARTA (JP): A series of ethnic and religious riots which rocked the country prior to the May 29 general elections was "political improvisation", the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) has said.
The PGI said the public unrest was the price the nation had to pay for allowing an oligarchy to develop.
It called for a halt to these "high cost" political improvisations, saying they would demolish democratization and national harmony.
"Building a democratic system costs us a lot, but we will have to pay more if the state ideology Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution (ever become endangered)," it said.
The issuance of the statement concluded the PGI's annual congress in Waingapu, East Nusa Tenggara on Nov. 14. The document, signed by PGI secretary-general J.M. Pattiasina, was publicized at the end of last week.
The communion expressed concern at the fact that Indonesians were prone to outbreaks of religious and ethnic tension.
It claimed that Protestants suffered the most in the unrest because many of their churches and property were targeted by rioters.
A Protestant church was among the buildings set on fire when the latest ethnic riot shook Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, in September. The riot was sparked by the killing of a local girl by a mentally disturbed man of Chinese descent.
PGI data released in March said 64 churches had been vandalized or destroyed during a series of pre-election riots across the country dating back to June last year in Surabaya.
Of the attacks on churches, 25.9 percent were in East Java, 21.4 percent were in West Java, 13.7 percent were in South Sulawesi, 13.1 percent were in Central Java, 4.8 percent were in Kalimantan and the remaining were in Yogyakarta, North Sumatra and other areas.
A vicar, his wife, daughter and another relative were killed in their burning church during a riot in Situbondo, East Java, in September last year.
Protestants make up about six percent of the country's 200 million, predominantly Moslem, population. The PGI now groups 72 Protestant denominations across the country after the recent congress.
"It's difficult to believe that the riots broke out in a country which is founded on Pancasila principles ... The riots indicate that democracy remains a long way off," the PGI said in its latest statement.
It said it was afraid that the outbreaks represented a widespread and systematic abrasion of nationalism.
"We therefore call on everybody to develop an open and reasonable way of thinking and avoid temporary political interests," it said.
The PGI also called on the People's Consultative Assembly, the first stage of whose general session is currently underway, to issue strategic decrees which would lead the nation to a bright future in the new century. (amd)