Indonesian church leaders train for conciliation

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 24 June 2000

WEST PAPUA, Indonesia -- The church in this eastern-most province of Indonesia is under great stress these days as it faces violence outside and conflict within. Tensions between Muslims and Christians are growing in a number of eastern provinces including West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), which is one of the few regions with a Christian majority. (See "Christians and Muslims face tension in Indonesia.") The province is also split by independence and counter-independence movements.

Irian Jaya declared independence from the Netherlands in 1961, but was placed under Indonesian rule in 1963 through a murky international process and has remained under the government of Jakarta for decades. Native Melanesian Papuans are some of the poorest people in the country and have little access to the region's wealth. The province is home to vast amounts of natural resources, mostly foreign-controlled, including the Grasberg mine, run by the U.S. firm Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc., the largest gold mine in the world.

Calls for independence have intensified in recent years. The fall of president Suharto in 1998 made political expression more conceivable, as did East Timor's break with Indonesia last September. A congress of local activists and tribal leaders gathered in late May in the provincial capital Jayapura to formally declare independence. Current Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid has agreed to change the name of Irian Jaya to the locally preferred West Papua, but has ruled out independence.

The church in West Papua is no stranger to the conflict. "Disagreements within the society about independence are mirrored by disagreements within the church," said Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) volunteer in Indonesia.

MCC is working with church leaders who are troubled by the controversy and pressed by supporters of different viewpoints. Churches in the GKI Synod of West Papua, which has historical ties to the Dutch reformed church, are a mixture of native Papuans and people from other backgrounds, in numbers similar to the makeup of the general population.

The Synod called three regional meetings of all its 460 pastors during the month of May in an effort to work out the divisions. Lacking experience in handling such meetings, the Synod asked Ruth-Heffelbower and a team from Duta Wacana Christian University to help. Ruth-Heffelbower works at the university peace center in conflict transformation. The team spent most of May in West Papua, providing leadership for the sessions, giving training in conflict communication and facilitating discussions.

"The pastors arrived confused and upset," said Ruth-Heffelbower. "And those who invited us were so tense they weren't sleeping." The atmosphere changed as participants began to dialogue.

The sessions focused on addressing the needs that underlie aspirations for independence. Participants worked together to generate ways for the church to respond to those needs.

"By working together in this way they developed a number of plans for working at meeting people's needs without reference to the political process," said Ruth-Heffelbower. Participants reacted very positively when they discovered they could work through this seemingly impossible subject and that people on both sides have the same needs.

Copies of all possible plans were distributed to each pastor, and the Synod has a committee working on follow-up. "The meetings left the pastors better able to work together at building up the church in these difficult times. Many people said to us, and the team felt it too, that the Holy Spirit was able to use our time together in a very powerful way," said Ruth-Heffelbower.

GKI has asked the team to return soon to provide intensive training for facilitators from each of the 34 regional groupings of the Synod. Next week Ruth-Heffelbower will speak in Jakarta to 1,000 Indonesian ministers on how Christians can bring peace to Indonesia.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org