A United Nations peace monitoring group has assigned the Seventh-day Adventist Church to the "frontline of the peace process," according to Pastor Richard Rikis, president of the church in the war-torn South Pacific island of Bougainville.
A United Nations peace monitoring group has assigned the Seventh-day Adventist Church to the “frontline of the peace process,” according to Pastor Richard Rikis, president of the church in the war-torn South Pacific island of Bougainville.
Adventists were asked by the U.N. group to take the lead in reaching out to community members and various clans who continue to display hostilities toward each other despite a declaration of peace signed in January 1998. Church members will involve themselves in one-on-one and group meetings, using cultural approaches that can help the peace movement spread, Pastor Rikis said in a recent telephone interview with ANN.
It is a significant responsibility for the church, since U.N. peace monitoring groups are planning to leave the island in late July and the rest of the U.N. staff will depart at the end of the year, Rikis notes.
“We were assigned to spearhead the work to go ahead with the peace process,” he says.
The conflict began in the late 1980s over compensation claims by landowners against the owners of the now-decommissioned Panguna copper and gold mine. It is one of the world’s largest mines and brought great income to Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea’s North Solomons province.
One reason the Adventist Church was chosen is because it is the only church that was organized during the 10-year civil war. The church was able to operate due to its impartiality during the civil war and met with both sides during the conflict. Rebel leader Francis Ona communicated with church officials on several occasions.
“[Ona] was the one that gave us permission to go ahead and try to help most of the people within the island,” says Rikis.
Rikis says that during their most recent meeting, Ona gave him a message for the Adventist world church: he thanked all Adventist members who prayed for the island during the conflict and asked their forgiveness.
“[Ona] apologized, especially for the Seventh-day Adventists, most of them young people ... who lost their lives during the ... conflict,” says Rikis. One pastor and several church members were killed.
Many Adventist church members were involved in the conflict, especially young people. Most of them have returned to the church, according to Pastor Rikis, and they are working hard to help the rest return. Some church leaders also left the church during the conflict to help lead troops in battle. They are now leading a new offensive.
“We used some of those ex-leaders, or as we call them, ‘ex-combatants,’ Rikis says. “They are in the church and they are now leading out in the lay work within the Adventist Church.”
Pastor Rikis feels that the island is safe enough to bring his family, who had been living in Kavieng, New Ireland, a small island situated about 200 kilometers northwest of Bougainville.
Rikis is confident that the efforts of the Adventist Church will help bring peace to the island.
“[In] the future of the island I have no doubt—I see that if it is God’s will—and if the Lord doesn’t come [during the next] 10 years, we will do something [for] the people of this island,” Rikis says.
