ANY national reconciliation as a result of the country’s coups must involve the victims.
This is the view of the Catholic Church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong.
He says from a Christian point of view, reconciliation is a spiritual process that deals with God, and that God always takes the side of victims. He said these victims included business people whose shops were looted and burnt and innocent people who were attacked.
Archbishop Loy Chong said any proposal for national reconciliation as a result of the revolutionary processes of the coup d’etats must involve the victims.
He said that from a Christian perspective, reconciliation is a spiritual process that deals with God, and that God always takes the side of the victims.
He said these victims included business people who suffered during the 1987 and 2000 coups, whose shops were burned and looted, and the innocent people who were attacked.
While the archbishop applauded the initiative of the United Nations in partnering with the government to pursue a reconciliation process, and with Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Major General Ro Jone Kalouniwai’s publicly expressed plans for reconciliation, he believes God should be included in these processes.
“It’s good that our military commander wants to pursue a reconciliation platform and it’s encouraging, but it all depends on what we understand about reconciliation,” he said.
“What processes you will use, because there are many ways and one is the cultural matanigasau, but from the spiritual perspective and for Christians, we believe that reconciliation or peace is a spiritual structure because it deals with God.
“Human beings are incomplete and we have to turn to God, who is peace, because the word peace comes from Hebrew shalom meaning ‘may you have fullness of life’.
“And we don’t have the fullness of life because only God is the fullness of life and that is why we need to involve a spiritual, divine dimension. It has to come in.”
Archbishop Loy Chong said from a Christian perspective, God always takes the side of victims and that is seen in the life of Jesus on earth.
“His mission was with victims of society, like the sick, prostitutes, lepers, and he spoke prophetically against those who do injustice.”
The archbishop said reconciliation should begin with the victims of injustice, and that means the four coups, because these people were traumatised and their lives were “like a movie that you’re watching and it just suddenly pauses and can’t continue to play”.
Archbishop Loy Chong said the government should involve experienced counsellors to deal with the victims because they need to share their stories, to get it out of their lives.
