Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Ambon (Fides Service) - Increasing poverty and the return of the terrorism nightmare are two major problems to which civil and religious authorities in the eastern Indonesian islands of Sulawesi and Moluccas are giving priority attention. According to observers only a fight to the death will defeat these scourges: in fact extreme poverty is a seedbed for recruiting unskilled labour for terrorism.
According to official statistics 126,000 Moluccas families live below the poverty line, a cause for concern at the social and civil level. In the spice islands a serious problem is that of refugees who fled during the years of civil war 1999-2002 and today wish to return to Ambon and take up the threads of life. The government is trying to resettle them but the operation is difficult due to scarcity of homes and the present situation in the city with Christian and Muslim communities still rigidly separated. In the meantime the living conditions of the homeless deteriorate rapidly with growing malnutrition among children and precarious sanitation. Life in camps around Ambon is ever more difficult and it is estimated that at least 60,000 people in the city itself live in extreme poverty.
The other question seen as a priority by the authorities is the question of a resurgence of terrorism in Moluccas and in Sulawesi where the police arrested five suspects with regard to the recent beheading of three Christian school girls in Poso. The civil authorities say that behind this and other episodes there is an attempt to rekindle inter-religious conflict in the region. The Indonesian police announced the discovery in Moluccas of a training camp for Islamic militants after other camps had been found in the Poso area.
“Efforts on the part of the Moluccas Catholic community to prevent the triumph of terrorism continue” said local Church sources in Amboina diocese. The sources denounced the existence of local group bent on encouraging disorder, instability and conflict between local Muslims and Protestant Christians: “We want to help these communities avoid the trap. They must continue along the path of Ambon’s civil and moral reconstruction and strive for social and religious harmony”.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 11/11/2005 Righe: 29 Parole: 295)
