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A former Irish Presbyterian missionary to Indonesia and now university professor in Brisbane and incoming President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rev James Haire, has said that 'the international community must now be prepared to send peacekeepers into the Moluccan Islands to avert further deaths in what is already a human catastrophy.'
His call echoes that of Indonesian Church Leaders and comes after further reports of continued mass killing of Christians by Islamic Jihad holy war warriors on the Island of Halmahera in the eastern Moluccan islands of Indonesia. Last Monday, 19 June, over 100 Christians were killed at the village of Duma as well as the taking hostage of several hundred women and children who have not been seen since. This is the latest outbreak of violence that has seen over 3000 Christians murdered throughout the Moluccas in the last six months.
'The population of these islands is over 50% Christian and what is happening is ethnic cleansing, the genocide of the indigenous population of these islands, and the people are utterly terrified,' said Professor Haire who has recently returned from a visit to the islands and is in regular contact by phone with Church leaders in Halmahera.
'Great numbers of Jihad troops have come in mainly from Java and although the Indonesian government has tried, it has been unable to stop them and they are engaged in warfare throughout these islands and in many cases killing great numbers.
'I had a phone call from Duma in the North of Halmahera telling me directly of the attack by between 2000-3000 Jihad warriors on this entirely Christian village. Most of the Christians fled to the church where they were murdered and then the church was set alight. I received a list of those murdered and about one third were people I had myself baptised.
'The international community has to be prepared to send in UN troops or peacekeepers if the Indonesian government asks and has also to keep up the pressure on the Indonesian Government by saying that they are at all times willing to help. This is a humanitarian catastrophy which we are going to regret that we did nothing about,' concluded Professor Haire.
In January the Presbyterian Church in Ireland appealed to United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson and both the British and Irish Governments to exert whatever pressure they could on the Indonesian Government to immediately act to restore order in the Moluccas.
Issued by Stephen Lynas, Presbyterian Information Services. Info@PresbyterianIreland.org
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