Indonesia: Salfi Leader Says Shiite Muslims Need To Convert To Sunni Before Returning To Their Homes

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The government says it is nearing a solution to repatriate Shiite Muslim families driven from their homes by Sunni hard-liners (Extremist Salafis) in Sampang district on Madura Island, following a meeting late on Thursday between the president and local clerics.Suryadharma Ali, the minister for religious affairs, said on Friday that the meeting in Surabaya, hosted by the East Java governor, was positive and that a reconciliation between the two groups was in sight.However, he stressed that any meaningful peace would only be obtained with the “enlightenment” of the around 200 Shiites currently living in tenement blocks in Sidoarjo, on the East Java mainland — a term largely understood to mean conversion to mainstream Sunni Islam, but which Suryadharma and other government officials have doggedly refused to clarify.A Sampang resident holds a banner that reads “Give back our right, we are Indonesian, too, free since 1945. But why are we colonized by Indonesia itself.” (AFP Photo)“In the meeting it was agreed that the reconciliation would be based on the enlightenment of the refugees, so that there’s a confluence of perception with regard to their religion,” the minister said.“This enlightenment process will be carried out where they are currently staying in Sidoarjo.”He declined to confirm whether this meant they would have to publicly renounce their faith, and refused to give any details about what the enlightenment process would entail, saying only that it was the main condition laid down by the Sunni clerics for allowing the Shiite families to return home.The Shiite community was the target of an attack by a Extremist Sunnis (Salafis) in August last year that stemmed from a family dispute between its leader, Tajul Muluk, and his brother, local Sunni cleric Rois Al Hukuma.The violence left two people dead and the Shiites’ homes torched, forcing them to take refuge at a municipal sports center.After languishing there for months, even after the government stopped supplying them with food and water, they were then forcibly moved from Madura to the East Java mainland in June, and have since been staying in government-provided tenement housing in Sidoarjo.Suryadharma said seven families had recently been welcomed back by the Sampang community after being “enlightened.”He added that in addition to this requirement, the Sunni clerics had also demanded that the central government ramp up the development of Madura as one of the conditions for allowing the Shiites back.“We’ve already drawn up a program for the acceleration of development in Madura. We’ve allocated at least Rp 1 trillion for economic development, building houses and so on,” Suryadharma said.Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, echoed the need for the Shiites to “harmonize” their views with those of their Sunni persecutors if they wanted to return.“We want assurances that they will be safe once they return, and that there will be no more intimidation or threats by them or vice versa,” he said in Jakarta on Friday. “We’re not setting any deadline for them to harmonize their differing views, but both sides have agreed that they would not resort to violence.”“It’s great if the reconciliation is really underway, but from what I have heard it was all a lie and a manipulation,” Hertasning Ichlas, the executive director of Universalia Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHU) and a lawyer for the Shiites, told the Jakarta Globe.“If the Shiites need to be enlightened, it’s not really a reconciliation,” he said. “In the end, they would be forced to convert to Sunni.”Hertasning said Yudhoyono had disagreed with Suryadharma’s enlightened comments.“The president and most of the cabinet ministers were against Suryadharma,” he said. “They did not support the plan to convert Shiites into Sunnis, they just wanted the reconciliation plan to proceed immediately.“The president said the Shiite-Sunni conflict had shed a poor light on Indonesia at the international level, and most ministers agreed that the displaced Shiites did not need to repent to achieve peace,” he said./129