Indonesia's Anti-American Stance Hinders Foreign Tsunami Aid
by Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
January 17, 2005
(AgapePress) - A pro-family leader is expressing shock over the way Indonesian officials are treating some of the relief workers trying to help the country recover from the December tsunami disaster.In the aftermath of the tidal waves that devastated much of Southeastern Asia, the U.S. government and other American agencies and ministries have committed personnel, funding, and resources to an international effort to meet the needs of those affected. Much of the relief effort has centered on Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, where more than 110,000 people are reported dead. Lately, however, Americans involved in the disaster response are finding Indonesia increasingly hostile to their assistance.
For example, Associated Press reports that one American mission agency has discontinued its efforts to raise money for the purpose of placing 300 Muslim orphans from Indonesia's disaster zone in a Christian orphanage, all because of a ban issued by the government of the tsunami-stricken country. According to Vernon Brewer, president of World Help, children are no longer available to be placed in the "non-Muslim children's home" due to the fact that the "climate has changed."
The U.S. military has also taken an active role in tsunami relief efforts up to now, with 24 navy ships, one Coast Guard vessel, and about 15,000 military personnel committed, including some 2,000 U.S. Marines who have been ferrying aid workers and transporting food to victims in Indonesia. Nevertheless, the government of Indonesia has expressed uneasiness about the presence of foreign troops and wants them all out of the country in three months. In the interim, Indonesian officials have forbidden American soldiers to carry weapons or set up base camps in their country, and they are demanding that female aid workers submit to Islamic law and refusing to welcome doctors on planes that carry American insignia.
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Gary Bauer |
Indonesia's Ingratitude and Media's Misplaced Concern
Christian activist Gary Bauer of Campaign for Working Families is outraged by the Indonesian government's demands and restrictions on foreign and particularly American relief workers. "There's an old saying in Washington that, in this city, no good deed goes unpunished," he notes, "but I think that phrase would more accurately be applied to the Islamic world."Bauer also takes issue with the mainstream media's apparent slant in its reporting on the World Help rescue effort. In a recent newsletter he noted that several papers, including the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun, seemed to be focusing on what the activist described ironically as "a new danger facing the orphans of Indonesia -- Christianity." In other words, he says what apparently concerned the mainstream media most was the fact that a Christian ministry headed by a graduate of "Reverend Jerry Falwell's Liberty University" had "airlifted 300 tsunami orphans from disease-infested Banda Aceh to Jakarta, where a Christian children's home was prepared to receive and raise them."
But the concerns of the mainstream media papers are misplaced, Bauer asserts. "If they are worried about the orphans of Indonesia," he says, "perhaps they could do a little investigative journalism on how Islamofascist groups operating in the region are already trying to herd as many children as possible into Muslim schools funded by the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia."
In fact, Bauer adds, the media would do well turn from efforts to demonize Christian ministries, and instead start informing the American public about the implications of Islamic extremism and indoctrination efforts. The Campaign for Working Families chairman says Americans often underestimate "the absolute hatred and paranoia there is within the Islamic world toward the United States and free countries generally."
Is Islamic Ideology Being Put Ahead of Humanity?
Many Americans also fail to recognize how corrupt Islamic governments tend to put ideology above the welfare of their people, Bauer asserts. Some Islamic nations hit by the tsunami suffered huge losses of life, property and infrastructure; yet they rejected medical relief and assistance from Israel, he says, "because they certainly couldn't take help from Jews."
The conservative Christian activist calls the Indonesian government's anti-American statements and restrictions "outrageous" and contends they are making a terrible tragedy worse. "Obviously," he says, "the people who are suffering the most from this kind of jihadist ideology are the people whose lives were ruined by this natural catastrophe."
Bauer says the "rank ingratitude" of Indonesia's officials is a reminder of what the people of the region suffer from the most -- their own corrupt leaders. Such governments are incapable, he asserts, of implementing the social and economic policies that could begin to lift their people out of poverty.
