WASHINGTON — With the worsening violence between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia’s Maluku Islands, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to seek a more “energetic” U.S. response.
According to its July 5 letter to Albright, the 10-member panel says at least 3,000 Muslims and Christians have been killed since the outbreak of violence in 1999. Hundreds are believed to have died in the last two weeks, and “the situation worsens as the killing continues and supplies of food and medicine reportedly dwindle in the region,” the letter states.
The bipartisan commission, which formed under a 1998 law, also raised concern regarding the neutrality of security forces in the region. Commissioners suspect that the military has taken sides and even “participated in the fighting while others may have supplied weapons to combatants.”
The panel said the Indonesian government is tolerating “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom, such as murder, forced mass resettlement and torture.”
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