Over the past month, they had razed almost a dozen other churches and not once targeted those inside.
During those operations, the inhabitants had fled in terror, encouraged by their attackers to do so. He sensed that the sergeant had moved outside the operation’s parameters, and wanted confirmation that this time, they were to kill. He could not see the cruel grin which marked the team leader’s face.
‘Burn them,’ he ordered, and rose to his feet clasping one of the Molotov cocktails in his right hand, simultaneously extracting a lighter from his jacket pocket with the other. The men followed suit, opening their own sacks containing the highly inflammable contents, and taking their positions as instructed.
Within minutes the church was ablaze. Tall dancing flames licked at the sky, casting light for hundreds of meters. Then the soldiers turned their attention to the adjoining buildings, hurling their deadly gifts into the air to smash against the buildings’ roofs, releasing burning fuel which spread through the ceiling and into the meager quarters where the minister and his wife remained, clutching each other in terror.
They cried out for assistance, and were dismayed when none came to their rescue. The ceiling above burst into flames, the heat and smoke unbearable. Finally, overcome by asphyxiation, the couple died, only minutes before the arsonists’ deadly fires could engulf their bodies.
The soldiers regrouped, then disappeared silently back through the fields to where their vehicle waited. By the time any of the local population had found the courage to investigate the carnage, the entire American-trained squad had driven more than fifty kilometers back to their station, where they changed back into uniforms bearing the insignia of the 21st Battalion, before returning to their provincial Kopassus headquarters in Surakata, Central Java.
Chapter Three
East Java – December, 1997
Lily Suryajaya
As custom required, Lily worked together with the older women in silence, their grief not evident as they washed the bodies in preparation for the funeral. Tears would flow later, when their work was done; when their minister and his wife had been laid to rest in the sacred ground within sight of the fire-gutted church.
Other non-Christian townspeople had demonstrated their deep-rooted apathy, electing to ignore the significance of the attack, silently pleased that the Chinese community had been punished for their apparent greed and commercial successes. Overwhelmingly, it seemed, even Christians not of Chinese extraction had elected not to attend their churches. They all now lived in a world filled with fear.
The church’s destruction had been the twelfth in a series of mysterious events which had, until the evening before, not claimed casualties. With the death of the two whose bodies now lay before them, these provincial Chinese had legitimate reasons to become even more deeply concerned with the escalation in violence, which they believed to be part of some concentrated campaign to further intimidate their race. Although there was no evidence to support the wide-spread rumors, the Christian community feared that the provocation had been initiated by Moslem elements, and that the orders had come from those in Jakarta who wished to create civil unrest to support their own secret agendas.
Whispered innuendo suggesting that men sporting typically military style haircuts had been seen at several of the churches before these were torched, had added to their fear. Such rumors were of great concern to the Chinese who suspected what this might mean to them, as it was common knowledge that the Indonesian army had often been deployed in the past, when the need arose to terrorize specific ethnic groups, for political gain.
But the Chinese were confused as to why suddenly churches had become the target of marauding bands of arsonists. Could it be, they asked each other, that the attacks were really the responsibility of militant Moslem groups?
After all, the Chinese communities only accounted for a small percentage of the Christian population. Surely, then, some argued, it was not the Chinese who were being specifically targeted, but Christians in general?
Although graffiti found at the scene of each desecration indicated that this sectarian violence had been instigated by Moslem raiders, the Christian communities questioned these attempts to fuel existing animosities between the rival groups. Bewildered by the escalating violence, the general consensus grew to support the belief that Jakarta elements were behind the civil unrest in the area. And now these subversive actions had resulted in the loss of the minister and his wife to the small Christian community.
* * * *
When the alarm was first given signaling that the Church and its adjoining accommodations were burning, not one from the congregation went to the scene, fearing that the gang responsible might still be present, and would confront any foolish enough to intervene. Besides, they had justified, those inside would surely have already fled to safety.
It was not until the following morning that evidence of the evening’s horrors became evident to all. The minister and his wife had perished, their remains found clutched together in scorched embrace. Too terrified to leave their premises, they had been overwhelmed by the heat and smoke and died. Their partly-charred bodies had been discovered amongst the smoldering ruins and taken to the rear section of the Apotik, the local, Chinese-owned pharmacy, until the authorities would agree to their burial. There, a number of local female parishioners had gathered, to prepare the bodies for burial.
Lily’s mother had been amongst the volunteers, and had insisted that her daughter accompany the women whilst they carried out their traditional preparations. The corpses were washed and cleaned where practical, injected and painted with formaldehyde, then dressed in cloth. When Lily first entered the chemist’s storage room she avoided looking at the bodies. The acrid smell of chemicals assailed her nostrils, but she resisted the temptation to flee. As the minutes dragged by, her stomach settled and Lily reluctantly went about assisting her mother, surprised with herself that she had found the strength to remain. Within the hour, the experienced women had managed to complete their tasks and stood by the corpses, admiring the results of their labors.
Lily wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist and, glancing across the room at her mother, she sighed. Lily desperately wished that her parents would now leave this hostile environment and travel with her to Jakarta, where she lived with her uncle while preparing for university.
Sadly, she realized, they would not leave their community, unwelcome as they might be. Generations of their family had lived in East Java since fleeing China more than two hundred years before and had developed strong ancestral ties with their new land.
* * * *
Originally, Lily’s family name was Ong. They had been obliged to adopt an Indonesian name as part of the assimilation process required by the New Order regime, which had come to power in 1966. Although born more than ten years after the holocaust, Lily knew that some half a million people had died during the two years following the abortive coup. She also knew that her race had been cruelly targeted by the indigenous people, who accused the ethnic Chinese of involvement in the communists’ attempt to take control of the government.
Vicious rumors had spread claiming that her people were responsible, at least in part, for the kidnap, mutilation and murder of the nation’s leading generals. The resulting cleansing campaign spread through the archipelago, striking fear in the hearts of all who were of Chinese extraction. Eventually, once the new President had been firmly ensconced at the nation’s helm and the blood-letting ceased, many of the Chinese who had fled the horrors of the Sixties returned, bringing with them capital the new government so desperately needed.
Lily
