c. 1999 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II urged Indonesia and the international community Friday (Sept. 10) to act swiftly to”put an end to the slaughter”in East Timor and give the Timorese their independence.

The Roman Catholic pontiff made the appeal in a message to Bishops Carlos F. Ximenes Belo of Dili and Basilio Do Nascimento of Baucau, both targets of attacks by pro-Indonesian militias believed to have killed hundreds of people, including priests and nuns, and forced thousands more to flee.”In most firmly condemning the violence, which has also been furiously unleashed against the personnel and property of the Catholic Church, I implore those responsible for so many acts of wickedness to abandon their murderous and destructive intentions,”the pope said.”It is also my heartfelt wish that as soon as possible Indonesia and the international community will put an end to the slaughter and find effective ways to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Timorese population,”he said.

John Paul’s renewed call for action is being echoed by other religious groups.

On Friday, the head of the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a letter to President Clinton, called for the immediate creation of a United Nations peacekeeping force for East Timor and said the United States has”been overly concerned not to offend the Indonesian authorities who, by all accounts, are themselves unable to control the murderous bands in East Timor.” Bishop Joseph Fiorenza, president of the NCCB, told Clinton the international community should intervene”with or without the acquiescence of the Indonesian government.” On Thursday, the National Council of Churches’ executive board, citing reports from local churches in East Timor, also urged Clinton to back creation of a U.N. peacekeeping force for the violence-wracked territory.

The violence broke out after the United Nations announced Sept. 4 that 78.5 percent of East Timorese had voted in an Aug. 30 referendum in favor of independence from Indonesia.”It is with great sadness that hour by hour I am receiving ever more tragic news from the cherished land of East Timor,”the pope said,”and I am profoundly saddened that the glimmers of hope born of the recent popular consultation have been transformed into the terror of today, which nothing and no one can justify.” Missionary groups reported Thursday the anti-independence militias may have killed as many as 15 priests. They confirmed Friday three priests died along with 100 Timorese in a grenade attack Monday on a church in the town of Suai.

Caritas, the international Catholic aid organization, reported the president of Caritas in East Timor, the Rev. Francisco Barreto, was slaughtered along with most of the 40 staff members providing food and shelter to some 25,000 refugees, who had fled inland.

Joan Ketelers, spokeswoman for Caritas International, said the organization was continuing its work in East Timor with the help of Caritas Australia, but she said a peacekeeping force”must intervene as soon as possible to avoid other massacres.” Herminio Da Costa, leader of the militias, confirmed in an interview with Portuguese radio stations that his force was targeting the church.”We are attacking the church because it is there that that our enemies are taking refuge,”Da Costa said.

According to the Vatican, 88 percent of the population in the parishes of Dili and Baucau is Catholic. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim state.

Belo, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of the Timorese, fled Dili after the militias destroyed his residence. Arriving in Lisbon en route to Rome to meet with the pope, he urged the U.N. Security Council and international organizations to act urgently to halt the”genocide”and”save whatever can be saved”in the ex-Portuguese colony, occupied by Indonesia since 1975.

In the American church’s plea to Clinton, Fiorenza expressed particular concern for the”bloody persecution”of the Timorese church.”A peacekeeping force must be sent to the region, with or without”the acquiescence of the Indonesian government in Jakarta, he wrote.”From the historic illegitimacy of Indonesia’s invasion of the territory in 1975, a conquest which the United Nations has never recognized, to the unchallenged expression of the people’s will on Aug. 30, an effort to come to the aid of the people of East Timor need not be an intrusion into a nation’s internal affairs but a response to the will of the people,”Fiorenza wrote.

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Fides, the news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, reported Indonesia’s conference of Catholic bishops has declared Sunday a”day of prayer and commemoration for the victims of the atrocities”in East Timor.

The agency said Bishop Joseph Suwatan, president of the Indonesian bishops’ conference, condemned”the systematic massacre and forced deportation of the population of East Timor.”Jakarta has denied it is deporting Timorese to the western part of the island, which is Indonesian territory, but Suwatan said,”Thousands have been forced to leave the country.” Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, who acts as the Vatican’s foreign minister, told Vatican Television the militias were carrying out”another genocide, a genocide that does not spare the Catholic Church.” He said they also had”destroyed and sacked”churches, schools, seminaries and convents.

The bloodshed in East Timor, Tauran said, is”a step backward for all of humanity because something very important happened in East Timor. A people, with almost 80 percent of the vote, expressed themselves in favor of the territory’s independence. Obviously, what we are seeing in these days is a violation of the most fundamental human rights.” Tauran said Vatican diplomats have been working to encourage the Security Council to approve the creation of an international peacekeeping force”in order to guarantee a minimum of order and legality to the Timorese territory.” Noting that the millennium was ending with wars in East Timor and in Africa, Tauran called it”a great sadness”to see that people are still”incapable of drawing lessons from history, not only that of long ago but also the history of the most recent past.”

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