Churches seek peace amid gang violence in East Timor
-31/05/06
Christian leaders in Ea
Churches seek peace amid gang violence in East Timor
-31/05/06
Christian leaders in East Timor will renew calls for peace during Sunday services this weekend, as foreign troops from Australia and Portugal continue to clash with armed gangs on the streets of Dili.
Last week, Father Antonio Alves of Motael Catholic Church called in his homily for special prayers for the country as around 1,000 refugees crowded in and around the church seeking shelter.
He described the situation as a national crisis in which the police and army, who are supposed to uphold security, have also split into warring factions.
Dili has been in chaos since trouble flared in April 2006 after the government fired more than a third of the 1,400-member army, reports UCA News.
Close to 600 soldiers were dismissed after they went on strike claiming discrimination and a lack of promotion. The soldiers concerned are Kaladi, a term referring to people from the western part of East Timor, while most army personnel are Firaku, from the east. The easterners claim they were the backbone of the resistance against Indonesian rule during the 1980s and 1990s.
“People have run away, people are dead, people suffer,” Father Alves said on the grounds of his church in central Dili, as frightened families gathered around him.
The priest blamed the government for the unrest. “This situation could have been stopped earlier if government leaders had listened to each other, and consulted with each other,” he said.
He added his hope that if President Jose Alexandre Gusmao “holds dialogue” with the rebels, this will stop the violence and refugees like the ones in his church grounds can go home.
Julio Da Costa, who had come to take refuge in the church, was distraught, saying his home had been burned down and he was unable to save anything. But he vowed, as he stood with his wife, daughter and two sons, not to perpetuate the violence. “What’s gone is gone,” he said. “I don’t want to take revenge.”
Gangs claiming to represent the two factions, armed with knives, swords, machetes, slingshots and some guns, have been burning homes and property and attacking people in this “east-west” conflict.
Analysts cite many potent factors in the current chaos – such as regional and ethnic rivalries, political factionalism, high unemployment and a culture of violence nurtured during 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation.
[With grateful acknowledgements to the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News), the world’s largest Asian church news agency]
Churches seek peace amid gang violence in East Timor
-31/05/06
Christian leaders in East Timor will renew calls for peace during Sunday services this weekend, as foreign troops from Australia and Portugal continue to clash with armed gangs on the streets of Dili.
Last week, Father Antonio Alves of Motael Catholic Church called in his homily for special prayers for the country as around 1,000 refugees crowded in and around the church seeking shelter.
He described the situation as a national crisis in which the police and army, who are supposed to uphold security, have also split into warring factions.
Dili has been in chaos since trouble flared in April 2006 after the government fired more than a third of the 1,400-member army, reports UCA News.
Close to 600 soldiers were dismissed after they went on strike claiming discrimination and a lack of promotion. The soldiers concerned are Kaladi, a term referring to people from the western part of East Timor, while most army personnel are Firaku, from the east. The easterners claim they were the backbone of the resistance against Indonesian rule during the 1980s and 1990s.
“People have run away, people are dead, people suffer,” Father Alves said on the grounds of his church in central Dili, as frightened families gathered around him.
The priest blamed the government for the unrest. “This situation could have been stopped earlier if government leaders had listened to each other, and consulted with each other,” he said.
He added his hope that if President Jose Alexandre Gusmao “holds dialogue” with the rebels, this will stop the violence and refugees like the ones in his church grounds can go home.
Julio Da Costa, who had come to take refuge in the church, was distraught, saying his home had been burned down and he was unable to save anything. But he vowed, as he stood with his wife, daughter and two sons, not to perpetuate the violence. “What’s gone is gone,” he said. “I don’t want to take revenge.”
Gangs claiming to represent the two factions, armed with knives, swords, machetes, slingshots and some guns, have been burning homes and property and attacking people in this “east-west” conflict.
Analysts cite many potent factors in the current chaos – such as regional and ethnic rivalries, political factionalism, high unemployment and a culture of violence nurtured during 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation.
[With grateful acknowledgements to the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News), the world’s largest Asian church news agency]