Faith Under Fire

A SIX-YEAR BATTLE to save the lives of three Christian men sentenced to death for their role in religious violence that rocked Indonesia in 2000 came to a sad end in September when the three were executed.

Despite numerous pleas for clemency by the Holy See and human rights groups, the Catholics, known as the Poso Three, went before the firing squad in the early hours of September 22, having been found guilty of inciting attacks during religious rioting in Central Sulawesi in 2000.

Government sources said Fabianus Tibo, Domingus Da Silva and Marianus Riwu had admitted their roles in religious violence, but there were doubts within both Christian and Muslim circles about their guilt. Lawyers for the three men had promised to hand over new evidence that would lead to the real masterminds of the violence, but that appeal was rejected by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Islam disregarded

Even Abdurrahman Wahid, a former President, called for a stay of execution the day before the death sentences were carried out. He said the executions were “against Islam,” but the country’s Attorney General, Abdurrahman Saleh, rejected the plea.

“In hadis (Muslim tradition), if there is doubt, in this case if the prosecutor has any doubt, don’t do it,” Wahid said. “It’s just that the attorney general did not pay attention to religion.”

Before their deaths, the men had insisted to their priest that they were innocent, and their lawyer said the executions amounted to “judicial murder”. Alexius Adu said he planned to bring Indonesian prosecutors before the International Criminal Court for “malicious actions against innocent citizens”.

Human rights groups had previously alleged that the men had not received a fair trial for their part in the religious violence that caused hundreds of deaths in Sulawesi, for which no Muslims received sentences harsher than 15 years in prison, despite the involvement of thousands of Muslims and Christians. The rights groups claim that the defendants were denied opportunities to present evidence that could have won their acquittal.

Sacrificed as scapegoats

International Christian Concern, a US-based Christian human rights organization, said the Catholics had been executed to placate Muslim anger over the death sentences handed down to three members of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah who were involved in a terrorist bombing in Bali in October 2002. Jeremy Sewell, an International Christian Concern policy analyst, said, “These men were sacrificed as scapegoats so that the Indonesian government could wash their hands and walk away from the Poso conflict of 1998 to 2003.

“If Indonesia really wants to show the world they value truth, they should reopen the investigation into this conflict and find all those responsible for the violence.”

Scott Flipse, East Asia director with the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, also said there needs to be an investigation of what happened in the area. Flipse said a number of groups, including Indonesian military officers and jihadists from Java, may have been involved in the violence.

“There needs to be some account of what happened, and the truth needs to be brought out and justice served,” he said. “The search for accountability needs to be taken wherever it leads.”

Last words

In a final statement, made through family members, Tibo said he was praying that his family would be “able to provide for themselves and forgive me for not being with them all these years,” AsiaNews reported. Riwu said he and the others were the victims of a “political plot” to cover the names of the men responsible for organizing the violence, which International Christian Concern contended were actually Muslim. “The law is against us,” said Da Silva. “For years we have tried to tell the truth, but they silenced us.”

Protests by the Vatican, international human rights organizations and the European Union had caused the executions to be postponed, but following that decision both the Attorney General and the area chief of police were sacked. The prisoners received last rites several days before the execution, but the government denied them a funeral mass at a Catholic church near Petobo Prison, Jimmy Tumbelaka, the men’s parish priest, told AsiaNews. They also denied them a traditional Catholic funeral procession. According to the priest, the decision violates the nation’s law which grants condemned prisoners the right to have their final wishes carried out. Disturbances broke out when the family of Domingus Da Silva made a request to say a requiem mass and bury the men in a preferred location which was rejected by local authorities. Bishop Joseph Suwatan of Manado said officials had shown gross insensitivity towards the dead men and their families. He told Aid to the Church in Need, the charity that campaigns for persecuted Christians around the world, how family and friends of Mr Da Silva were all set for a Requiem Mass on Flores island where he wanted to be buried. But they discovered that the 42-year-old’s body had been laid to rest in Palu, in Central Sulawesi – not far from where the executions took place – which prompted angry demonstrations.

Sham trial

The Vatican issued a statement on September 23 expressing “great sadness” at the news that the men had been executed. Hoping to prevent further religious clashes, the Vatican released a statement noting that the Holy See has campaigned consistently against the use of the death penalty, while appealing for calm. Earlier, Cardinal Paul Poupard, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said he hoped that “the blood which has been spilled will be a sign of hope for all believers in a merciful God”.

However, analysts fear the executions could lead to a renewed outbreak of attacks against Christians in the troubled region. Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International, urged Indonesia to protect its Christian population, and said that the credibility of the country’s legal process had been called into question. “Indonesia’s judicial system is notable for its corruption, but this trial was over the top,” he said. He added that during the trial of the three men crowds of Muslim fundamentalists had regularly demonstrated at the courthouse, intimidating both judges and witnesses. And, he said, such intimidation was not an isolated occurrence. “Mobs have regularly destroyed churches and other Christian facilities around Indonesia, with no one ever punished,” he said. “Out of fear of retaliation local officials often refuse to allow congregations to rebuild”.

“The men’s lawyers received death threats, including a bomb planted at one lawyer’s house, and demonstrators armed with stones outside the courthouse demanded that the three be sentenced to death,” said Isabelle Cartron of Amnesty International.

The executions came less than a year after three Sunday school teachers were jailed for the alleged “Christianisation” of Muslim children. Although these young students had been attending classes with the permission of their parents, the women were sentenced to three years in prison and received death-threats from Muslim fundamentalist groups.

The US State Department 2006 Report on Religious Freedom in Indonesia said that while the Indonesian government “generally respected freedom of religion, restrictions continued on some types of religious activity and on unrecognized religions. The Government sometimes tolerated discrimination against and the abuse of religious groups by private actors, and often failed to punish perpetrators.”

Daily discrimination

Christian groups allege they face daily discrimination when it comes to receiving government benefits and jobs in Indonesia, and are also regularly subject to extortion and intimidation because they claim the police does not protect non-Muslims. Although Indonesia’s population – spread across 6,000 islands straddling the Equator between the Indian and Pacific oceans – is ethnically highly diverse, with a volatile mixture of Muslims and Christians speaking more than 300 local languages, more than 85 percent of the country’s 235 million inhabitants are Muslim, and only about 10 percent are Christian.

As Islamic fundamentalism has flourished across the region in recent years, militant Islamic groups have flexed their muscles. Jemaah Islamiyah, which receives large chunks of its funding from al-Qaeda, has sent “jihad fighters” to attack Christian areas, resulting in more than 8,000 deaths.

Last year, in Poso, central Sulawesi, three Christian high school girls were beheaded and a fourth seriously wounded as they walked to school. The girls’ heads were placed on a church doorstep some distance away, indicating that the violence was religiously motivated. Two weeks afterwards an unidentified attacker shot two other high school girls in the face in the same town. Although international pressure led to the arrest of seven men, the suspects were released as soon as this pressure died down, and no-one has been charged for the atrocities since.