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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (7359)	10/20/2001 5:23:44 PM
From: chalu2	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23908

How about a Christian Indonesian state? CONVERT OR DIE! To enter day-to-day Christian life in eastern Indonesia is like passing through a time warp back into the days of the book of Acts. Christians, who lived peaceably with their Muslim neighbors three years ago, now live in daily fear of attacks from them. Declaring they are on a holy mission from Allah, machete-clad Muslims assault Christian villages shouting, "Convert to Islam or die." Most Christians run in terror, escaping into the jungles where they often wander for weeks until they are rescued. Thousands of Indonesian Christians have watched in horror as their family members are cut down before their eyes under angry Muslim swords, bombs, and guns. Those who dare to defend their churches and families are usually outnumbered by the Jihad and lack their sophisticated weapons. Parents and grandparents are captured and told their children and grandchildren will be immediately killed if they do not convert to Islam. Petrified for themselves and for their children, more than 7000 of those captured have converted to Islam in word only, losing their human dignity in forced mass circumcisions. Those who convert to Islam to save their families often escape or send messages to their Christian friends asking them to rescue them from the Muslim strongholds. Fighting between Indonesia's Muslim and Christian communities is said to have first broken out over a quarrel between a Christian taxi driver and a Muslim on the island of Ambon in January 1999. A pattern of small domestic incidents followed, each one escalating into what radical Muslims call a Jihad (holy war) against all Christians in Indonesia's Maluku Islands, killing more than 8000 and displacing half a million Indonesians from both sides. Laskar (warrior) Muslims pressure civilians and military to join them in the fighting and "social cleansing" of Indonesia's Christian community. Thousands of Indonesians have joined the heroes of Hebrews eleven, "who through faith gained what was promised," experiencing the miraculous intervention of God in the face of death. Others do not receive the promise of miraculous intervention, but go further in faith and are martyred with the promise of gaining "something better." "They were slain with the sword…" Christian pastors, who have a $5,000 (US) bounty on their heads, are often cut down while protecting and providing for their threatened flocks. One Christian who escaped death tells the story of Pastor Patiasina, who was caught by the Jihad along with 1718 other Christians on Lata-lata Island. The Jihad said that all would be slain unless the pastors identified themselves. Pastor Patiasina and three of his elders came forward and were promptly beheaded. The rest of the Christians were forced to be circumcised. Since all the Christians who refused to convert have been slain, fighting in those areas has ceased. One of the latest acts of brutality was against 45-year-old Pastor Yonaton Roriwo, who was caught by Jihad warriors while trying to deliver badly needed supplies to church families. When asked if he was a Christian, Pastor Roriwo stated, "I am a Christian and a pastor." His abductors asked him to denounce Christ and convert to Islam. When he refused, they cut off his left hand. As he refused again and again to recant Christ, the Jihad cut off Pastor Roriwo's right hand, his forearm, then his head. This gentle pastor's head was paraded up and down the streets of Ternate in celebration of Jihad victory. In heaven he stands with the great men of faith who "loved not their lives, even to the death." "Others had trials of cruel mockings and bonds…" Jesus warned that his followers would be hated because of Him. Infused with this hatred, Muslim Jihad warriors ruthlessly taunt Christians in an effort to cleanse the islands of His name. Pastor Yohannen (not his real name), leader over 150 churches, escaped from the island of Ternate with his wife and two children when the Jihad attacked their village at 4:30 AM. After destroying Pastor Yohannen's church, the Jihad left a message on a partially destroyed wall that read, "Jesus is a pig and this is a pig pen." One man wept as he told Pastor Yohannen that on Halmahara Island, sixty-three year old Pastor Tiaua Katiandago was murdered with his children and two grandchildren. After throwing the bodies of his family down a well, the warriors hacked his body into small pieces and scattered them around his yard. "They wandered in mountains, dens, and caves of the earth…" It is difficult to look into the lives and deaths of these saints, yet how can one look the other way? An eleven-year-old fled in terror to the jungle after seeing his mother brutally murdered by Jihad warriors. The boy wandered by himself for ten days before being rescued.