Don't try to convert us, Muslim leader warns Christian groups

Indonesia’s Muslims “will not remain quiet” if international relief groups try to convert tsunami survivors to Christianity, a senior Islamic leader said, as efforts to prevent epidemics in overcrowded, unsanitary camps gathered steam.

With thousands made homeless by the Boxing Day disaster, the United Nations speeded up its measles vaccination drive after 20 cases of the disease were reported across Indonesia’s hard-hit Aceh province. Health workers also began spraying tents with insecticide to prevent malaria in areas swamped by last month’s earthquake-triggered tsunami that killed more than 157,000 people.

US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz, in Thailand today to discuss aid efforts, said during the flight there that he hoped the US military’s role in the relief mission would be finished well before the end of March, following statements from Indonesian leaders that all foreign troops should leave the country by March 31.

As more aid flowed to worst-hit areas of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said he would name a special envoy next week to co-ordinate relief and reconstruction efforts in the countries in Asia and Africa hit by the killer waves.

At Friday prayers in the main mosque of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, a Muslim leader warned against attempts by some Christian aid workers to evangelise among tsunami survivors.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and Aceh is particularly conservative.

“All non-governmental organisations, either domestic or international, with hidden agendas coming here with humanitarian purposes, but instead proselytising, this is what we do not like,” said Dien Syamsuddin, secretary-general of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas.

He also condemned reports that US-based welfare organisation WorldHelp had planned to adopt 300 Acehnese children orphaned by the quake and raise them in a Christian children’s home.

The group said on Thursday that it had abandoned those plans.

“This is a reminder. Do not do this in this kind of situation,” Syamsuddin said. “The Muslim community will not remain quiet. This a clear statement, and it is serious.”

Masked workers with mosquito-killing spray guns began moving through refugee camps around Banda Aceh in attempt to prevent an outbreak of malaria. The combination of the tsunami and heavy rains have created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos.

“Short-term, we’re trying to prevent an epidemic,” said Richard Allan, director of the Mentor Initiative, a public health group that fights malaria epidemics. “And it may already be too late.”

Allan warned that another 100,000 people could die of malaria around the Aceh region if quick action was not taken.

Other major health risks in Aceh include dirty drinking water – often from unsanitary latrines – that could give people cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other water-borne diseases.