Scientologists, Jews, Quakers, Muslims offer solace

Scientologists, Jews, Quakers, Muslims offer solace

Bill Tarrant, Reuters, Jakarta

The Church of Scientology is applying its mind-over-matter
healing techniques to injured tsunami survivors in Aceh. Jews and
Quakers are sending humanitarian aid. Islamic groups are
providing "spiritual guidance".

Scores of religious and humanitarian groups have, quite
literally, pitched their tents in Aceh, after the province of 4
million people was pulverized by the strongest quake in 40 years
and unprecedented tsunami.

Flying in on Cessnas and commercial aircraft or driving in on
smashed up roads, an army of aid workers is bustling about the
province -- which had been closed to almost all outsiders until
the Dec. 26 disaster, the most widespread natural calamity in
living memory.

"This is the most amazing response we've ever had to an
appeal," said Conny Lenneberg, senior program coordinator for
World Vision, one of the largest private aid groups in Aceh.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for an unprecedented
response to an unprecedented catastrophe that has also hit India,
Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and
several east African nations.

Governments across the world have committed US$5.5 billion
toward relief, while private individuals and corporations have
pledged at least another $2 billion so far. Even North Korea
promised $150,000.

A tent city housing 60 international groups and 1,125 aid
workers from across the world has sprouted up at the airport in
Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh province. UN relief efforts alone
represent 90 countries.

The groups meet daily under the auspices of the United Nations
and host Indonesia to make sure that things like woolen blankets
don't go to the tropics and soft drinks aren't loaded instead of
antibiotics onto trucks bound for field hospitals.

The UN says it needs to feed or shelter up to five million
people affected by the disaster and warns disease could push up
the death toll, now at more than 157,000 around the Indian Ocean
rim.

There has been much concern in Indonesia, the world's most
populous Muslim nation, that some of the Western agencies
involved in the relief could also be pushing a religious agenda.

But although groups from the Jewish organization B'Nai Brith
and Catholic Relief Services to evangelical Christians and
Mormons are raising money or working with the survivors, little
in the way of missionary work can be seen.

World Vision may be a "Christian humanitarian organization"
but its code of conduct outlaws proselytizing. "We don't mix
missionary work with aid work," Lenneberg said.

It's an old debate going back to at least the 16th century
when the Jesuits and Franciscans competed for souls in China.
Should religion follow trade, or in this case, aid? Nowadays,
most faith-based relief groups say they defer to local cultures
and let their actions speak louder than words.

That's especially so in Aceh, where more than 95 percent of
the population professes Islam.

The Indonesian Mujahiddin Council (MMI), which seeks to
establish an Islamic state in Indonesia, makes no such
distinction.

Members of the group, founded by cleric Abu Bakar Ba'syir, can
be seen around Aceh's refugee camps with their skull caps and
flowing robes distributing spiritual help along with food and
clothes to refugees.

"We try to help them strengthen their mental condition, so
they become more stable," MMI executive chairman Irfan Awwas
said.

Chief social welfare minister Alwi Shihab, who is coordinating
the overall relief effort in Aceh, said neither Muslims nor
Christian evangelists are a problem.

"I have met with some of the radical groups and their main
concern is the humanitarian mission," he said. "I don't think the
Christians would do (missionary work). That would backfire."

Experts said any missionary work was bound to fail, especially
in Aceh, where people are fiercely independent and resistant to
outside influence.

"I don't think it's fertile ground. It never has been," said
Sidney Jones, Southeast Asia director for the International
Crisis Group, a Brussels-based non-government body dedicated to
helping resolve deadly conflicts.

Jones said MMI and other groups branded as militant, such as
the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), would be keen to show they
were better at distributing aid than Western groups, which needed
to be careful to observe Islamic codes of behavior.

Most faith-based aid groups say acts of mercy are rewarding
enough without trying to convert anybody.

Members of the Scientology Emergency Response Team can be
spotted around the sprawling refugee camps in their yellow T-
shirts giving succor to the injured.

The Church of Scientology, which counts actors Tom Cruise and
John Travolta among its members, teaches that technology can
expand the mind and help solve problems and uses mind over matter
healing techniques the group calls "Assists".

It's Website (www.scientology.org) shows one member
purportedly healing the broken arm of an Acehnese man in a Banda
Aceh field hospital.