Both ambique and Papua are experiencing are experiencing dreadful persecution that amounts to genocide.
Jihad resumes in ambique
Twelve months ago, after nearly four years of jihad, the situation in northernambique seemed to have turnedacorner. However, by August 2022, the jihadists had regrouped and relaunched their campaign.
Their campaign has a motive: discovered in 2010, the gas fields off the coast of Cabo Delgado are the third largest proven gas reserves in Africa after Nigeria and Algeria. The jihad could derail ambique’s economic development and destabilise the wider region. In June 2021 troops were deployed and by August 2021 the situation seemed stable.
However, on 19 AugustIslamicStatereleasedvideos from both the Democratic Republic of Congo and ambique, in which jihadists in each country call for attacks on Christians and warn that jihad will continue until Islamic Sharia Law is applied and non-Muslims pay the jizya/tax (protection money for the right to life; QuranSura 9:29).
The Catholic mission in Chipene, in Memba District was targetedon 6 September.
Four Christians were killed, including Sister Maria De Coppi (84), a nun who had served in ambique since 1963. Jihadists claimed they shot her in the head because she was ‘too committed to spreading Christianity’. Six people were beheaded and three were abducted. The mission’s church, hospital, primary and secondary schools, dormitories and new computer lab were burned, as were dozens of homes.
On Thursday 8 September the European Union – which is desperate to find alternative sources of gas – offered financial support of 15 millioneurostotheSADCMissioninambique. While the crisis is complex and multi-layered, most ambicans insist that Islamic radicalisation – courtesy of fundamentalist Salafi/Wahhabi preachers – plays a major part.
A detailed background which unpacks the ethnic, religious, historical, political, and economic context of the jihad in northern ambique can be found on Religious Liberty Monitoring, ‘ambique: ACrisisintheMaking,’ 13 May 2020. Only by addressing the issues at the root of Muslim disaffection in Cabo Delgado can the government make a lie of the victimhood narrative used by Islamists to recruit youths into jihad.
Papuan betrayal
After World War Two, Indonesia declared independence from the Netherlands, claiming all the Dutch East Indies as its territory, including ethnic Melanesian and non-Muslim Dutch/West New Guinea. In 1962 (during the Cold War -- timeline), the US J.F. Kennedy administration convinced its allies and the UN to legitimise Indonesian rule in the hope that the favour might keep Indonesia out the Soviet sphere of influence.
Today, human rights affirming states continue to betray the Papuans – who now are predominantly Christian – by turning a blind eye to Indonesia’s colonisation, militarisation, exploitation and gross human rights abuses in the hope of retaining access to Indonesian markets (especially military markets) and keeping Indonesia out of China’s sphere of influence [NB: it’s not working].
On 30 June the Indonesian government passed legislation to dividePapuaProvinceintofouradministrativeunits, ignoring the willofthePapuanpeople. Jakarta claims it is working to fix its Papua problem by way of development and improved services. But as Aprila Wayar and Johnny Blades explain (TheDiplomat, 21 June): ‘Papua’s problem isn’t lack of development; it’s a lack of justice for West Papuans.’
In Papua, asinIraq, ‘the Christian crisis is existential’. At the root of the problem is the empire’s greed for land and resources, along with a toxic racial-religious (Javanese-Muslim) supremacism that reduces the indigenous Melanesian Christians to despised infidel animals to be removed by any means. [RLPB 636, UNexpertscallfor ‘urgentaction’, 9 March 2022.]
On 26 AugustresidentsofIwakavillage, outside the town of Timika – the capital of Mimika Regency along the southern coast of Central Papua – found three mutilated, dismembered bodies in sacks floating down the Pigapu River. Thebodyofafourthvictim – likewise dismembered and stuffed in a sack – was found on 30 August.
According to the Indonesian police, at least one of the men was a separatist sympathiser, and the group had approached army personnel looking to buy weapons.
Meanwhile, in Nduga Regency (a restive area in Highlands Papua), the victims’ families and Nduga’s Regent/head, Namia Gwijangge, tellatotallydifferentstory. It has been confirmed that the victims set out from Nduga for Timika on 22 August to purchase building supplies and agricultural equipment. Gwijangge insists the four men were civilian citizens of Nduga Regency and that the Indonesian military ‘kills civilians in Papua like hunting animals’.
SixIndonesiansoldiersandthreeoffour wanted civilians have been arrested. Gwijangge is pleading with Papuans not to retaliate and for Indonesia to bring the killers to justice.
Please pray for Papua and ambique
God’s word says ‘Do not stand idly by when your neighbour’s life is threatened’ (Leviticuschapter 19 verse 16b NLT).
Lord, we pray that you would intervene for your precious Papuan and ambican people, to save them; may those who seek to kill and plunder God’s people ‘stumble and fall’ (Psalmchapter 27 verse 2); may those who commit violence be brought to account; may justice prevail; may the wicked no longer enjoy impunity. ‘For nothing will be impossible with God’ (Lukechapter 1 verse 37 ESV).
Lord we pray that you would strengthen the Christians – be with them in a tangible way so they know that you are a very present help in time of trouble.