RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN BRUNEI: HOW ST. ANDREW GOT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 000051

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/09/2017
TAGS: PHUM PREL BX
SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN BRUNEI: HOW ST. ANDREW GOT
HIS CHURCH BACK

Classified By: Ambassador Emil Skodon, Reasons 1.5 (B,D)


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SUMMARY
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1. (C) The Anglican Parish of St. Andrew,s has finally
received a permit to resume rebuilding its church in Bandar
Seri Begawan, the first major construction project on a
non-Muslim house of worship to be approved in Brunei in
decades. This follows several months in which the
congregation was in limbo, having torn down their old church
on the basis of a previously issued renovation permit, only
to have that permit revoked before reconstruction of the
building could begin due to concerns by conservative Muslims
about abetting Christian worship. The Government of Brunei
(GOB) agreed to allow a resumption of work on the church only
after direct intervention by the Embassy, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Sultan,s brother; the
final decision had to be made by the Sultan himself. The
saga of St. Andrew,s illustrates the ongoing
behind-the-scenes influence of an Islamic clerical
establishment determined to maintain tight controls on
non-Sunni Muslim religious practice despite the guarantee of
freedom of worship contained in Brunei,s constitution. End
Summary.

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ST. ANDREW'S: A TIGHTLY CONTROLLED PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY
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2. (SBU) St. Andrew's Anglican parish is one of the oldest
and most prestigious non-Muslim denominations in Brunei. It
was founded seventy years ago and counts among its
congregation several prominent members of the ethnic Chinese
merchant families that are the backbone of Brunei's private
business sector. Its school, which accepts students of any
faith, has long been considered one of the more prestigious
educational institutions in Bandar Seri Begawan; both the
current Crown Prince and his wife received their primary
education there.


3. (C) None of this prestige was reflected in St. Andrew's
church building. A small wooden structure that was built in
1950, it had no air conditioning, was badly in need of
repair, and had long been outgrown by its congregation. For
several years St. Andrew's had sought a building permit from
the Bandar Seri Begawan Municipal Board to build a new,
larger church, without success. This reflected an unspoken
GOB policy of keeping strict limits on Christian worship in
the Sultanate, which many Bruneians trace to a 1964 fatwa
issued by the then-State Mufti that advised Muslims against
any action that would help non-Muslims to spread their faith.
Bruneian contacts tell us this policy was quietly enforced
by the office of the State Mufti, the highest ranking Muslim
cleric in Brunei. (Tight control also extends to any
practice of Islam outside the Sunni Sha'afi school; no Shia
mosques are permitted, for example.)

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A MARGINAL ADVANCE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IS QUICKLY REVERSED
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4. (C) In September 2005 the Bandar Seri Begawan Municipal
Board took one of the sudden and, at least to an outsider,
inexplicable actions so characteristic of Bruneian
bureaucracy, and informed St. Andrew's that it was willing to
consider issuance of a limited building permit. The offer
was far short of what the parish was seeking. St. Andrew's
would not be allowed to build a new, larger church as it had
requested. It could, however, renovate its rickety old
building, as long as the end result had the exact same
dimensions as the old church. Quickly deciding that half a
loaf was better than none, the parish executive council
accepted the limitations and engaged an architect to draw up
plans that would form the basis for issuance of a permit for
renovation work.


5. (C) After investigating the condition of old St. Andrew's
Church, the architect decided that it was essentially
unsalvageable and drew up plans for the old structure to be
rebuilt from the ground up with all new materials. These
plans were submitted to the Municipal Board and a letter was
issued granting permission for renovation work to begin. On
that basis, worship services were moved to a temporary home
in the parish administrative hall and the old structure of
St. Andrew's was taken apart until, in October of 2006,
nothing was left but the foundation. The members of the
congregation optimistically hoped that they might even be
able to celebrate the Christmas of 2006, or certainly Easter
of 2007, in a reconstructed church.

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6. (C) Those hopes were dashed when the Municipal Board
suddenly notified St. Andrew's that the building permit had
been revoked and all work had to cease. The explanation was
that the parish was going beyond the bounds of its original
renovation permit by undertaking new construction. St.
Andrew's executive council argued that the architect's plans
for completely reconstructing the unsafe old structure had
already been submitted to the municipal authorities and
approved before the renovation permit was issued. This
protest was to no avail, however. The parish board was told
that it could apply for a new construction permit, but was
given no advice on what might be acceptable and no assurances
that a new permit would ever be issued.

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A CONGREGATION LEFT IN LIMBO DUE TO CONCERNS OF MUSLIM CLERICS
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7. (C) Although details remain murky, informed Bruneians tell
us that the State Mufti's office was almost certainly behind
the revocation of the original permit. They maintain that
the Mufti and conservative clerics in his office had agreed
not to stand in the way of the original construction permit
only as long as it was strictly limited to renovation and
allowed for no expansion of church facilities. When they saw
that the old church had been completely razed -- a
development that St. Andrew's made no effort to hide and
which was plainly visible from the street in front of the
church grounds -- they assumed that the Anglicans were trying
to use the cover of a renovation project to sneak in the new,
larger church they had long desired. That was apparently
beyond the pale, and so the Mufti's office quietly advised
officials at the Municipal Board to do their religious duty
as good Muslims and revoke the permit.


8. (C) As the head of another established (non-Anglican)
Christian church in Brunei told us, the problem with St.
Andrew's was that it failed to play the game as Christians
needed to play it in Islamic Brunei. Had the Anglicans built
a large wall around the church site to mask what they were
doing, or found some way to prop up the old church's wooden
frame while reconstruction went on, they probably could have
gotten away with completing the work on the basis of their
original renovation permit. By proceeding in plain view,
however, the work on the church was an affront to pious
Muslims who had been taught to beware the threat of Christian
missionary "crusaders," and an invitation to a backlash. The
leaders of St. Andrew's parish had forgotten that they had to
keep their heads down and remain unobtrusive if they wanted
to continue practicing their faith in Brunei. Because they
did not, they found themselves in limbo, with their old
church building gone and work halted on its planned
reconstruction.

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THE U.S. EMBASSY GETS INVOLVED...
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9. (C) The Embassy had been following the saga of St.
Andrew's closely from the start. When the original
construction permit was revoked, we let it be known to
members of the parish council that we would be willing to
intervene with the GOB on their behalf if they wished.
Initially, the reply was that they were grateful for our
interest but preferred to submit a new permit request and try
to work things out quietly with the government, for fear of
digging themselves into an even deeper hole if they were seen
to be enlisting the aid of a foreign embassy against the GOB.
We respected their wishes, recognizing that what would pass
for paranoia in many other countries constituted realism in
Brunei. Embassy officers never met officially with church
leaders to discuss their situation, but rather stayed abreast
of developments via the Ambassador's conversations with
parish council members he saw at various social events and
official functions.


10. (C) Finally, in early December, one of the members of
the parish council discreetly let the Ambassador know that
the parish was becoming so pessimistic about the possibility
of resolving the impasse on its own that it would welcome any
low-key help we might provide. Accordingly, the Ambassador
asked to see First Deputy Permanent Secretary Datin Maimunah
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to discuss a
human rights issue. At a December 5 meeting he outlined the
St. Andrew's problem for Datin Maimunah, and told her the
Embassy would have no choice but to include a description of
the situation in its draft of the Human Rights Report due to
Washington in early January. If a new building permit was
issued beforehand, we would give the GOB credit for allowing
the first major construction project on a non-Muslim house of
worship for many years. If it was not, however, we would

BANDAR SER 00000051 003 OF 004


report that fact forthrightly and it would probably be
interpreted by many as evidence that the GOB was deliberately
suppressing Christian worship.


11. (C) Datin Maimunah told Ambassador she was not aware of
the St. Andrew's situation and would have to look into it.
Two days later, she phoned Ambassador and related a
legalistic justification of the GOB action, stating that St.
Andrew's had exceeded the terms of its original construction
permit and therefore had to halt work on the church while its
application for a new permit was reviewed in accordance with
existing laws and regulations. Ambassador thanked her but
said that he did not wish to debate the details of Bruneian
zoning law; he only wanted the MFAT to be aware that Brunei's
international image was going to be affected by the St.
Andrews' situation because we were obligated to report on it
in our Human Rights Report, one way or the other.

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...AND THE ROYAL FAMILY JOINS IN
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12. (C) Datin Maimunah's anodyne response to the Ambassador
belied other behind-the-scenes developments. The day after
her phone call to the Ambassador, a prominent Bruneian
businessman who was also a member of St. Andrew's parish went
into a meeting with His Royal Highness Prince Mohamed, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Sultan's brother, to
discuss economic issues in conjunction with Prince Mohamed's
role as Chairman of the Ministerial Economic Council. He had
determined to use the opportunity to raise the St. Andrew's
issue, only to have Mohamed cut him off by saying he knew all
about the problem because the American Ambassador had already
"complained" to the Ministry. As the story was later related
to the Ambassador by someone who was at the meeting, an
obviously agitated Mohamed told Second Minister of Foreign
Affairs Pehin Lim Jock Seng, who was also present, to work
with other ministries to get a new building permit issued.
When Pehin Lim replied that he had already started the "due
diligence" required to understand the facts of the matter,
Mohamed reportedly barked "We don't need due diligence. We
know the facts. Just fix it."

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AT THE SULTAN'S ORDER, ST. ANDREW GETS HIS CHURCH BACK
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13. (C) As things turned out, "fixing it" took considerable
time and effort, even with the Sultan's brother pushing for
the issue to be resolved and Second Minister Lim, considered
one of the most effective members of Cabinet, working for the
issuance of a new building permit. A GOB source told us the
decision went "to the top," meaning the Sultan himself, who
finally ordered that work on the church be allowed to
continue. Even after that instruction was issued, however,
there was difficulty in finding an appropriate GOB official
willing to sign the required letter notifying St. Andrew's
that it could resume construction. The old fatwa warning
against abetting the spread of Christian worship apparently
had lingering potency in the minds of many Bruneian
officials. Ambassador was told that, at one point, the draft
letter had to be redone because the official scheduled to
sign it had decided to take early retirement; the source of
this information speculated, only half in jest, that the
bureaucrat in question made this decision after deciding that
his continued employment was not worth putting his immortal
soul at risk.


14. (C) Finally, on January 31, St. Andrew's received a
letter renewing the construction permit for its church. The
parish member who conveyed this news to Ambassador was
generous in conveying the church's gratitude to the USG,
stating that our intervention was one of the keys to getting
the permit issued, and that the low-key way in which it was
done had avoided a backlash that could have caused even worse
trouble for St. Andrew's. This parishioner believed the
other key was the determination of Prince Mohamed himself.
In his view, His Royal Highness was motivated not only by a
desire to avoid the international approbation that would have
resulted from leaving St. Andrew's in limbo without a church
building, but also by a genuine conviction that the GOB had
to respect the rule of law and provisions of its own
constitution, including that which allowed religions other
than Islam to "be practiced in peace and harmony by the
person professing them in any part of Brunei Darussalam.".

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COMMENT -- THE BOUNDARIES OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN BRUNEI
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15. (C) In our view, there are three lessons from this
episode:

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-- First, although it is not readily visible to
non-Bruneians, the pervasive influence of the conservative
Islamic clergy here should not be underestimated. In this
case, for example, not even a prominent member of the royal
family could immediately override clerical interests. This
is largely because the national philosophy of the country as
a "Malay Islamic Monarchy" is drummed into Bruneians from an
early age and instills a sense of near-awe about the
authority of those who interpret Islam for the lay community.

-- Second, as a result of this clerical influence, while
there may be widespread tolerance for the personal practice
of other faiths in this officially Islamic nation, tolerance
does not equate to freedom for those religions to do what
they please. Limits on their activity may be unspoken but
are still expected to be respected and not questioned.

-- Third, in the Bruneian context, the most productive human
rights advocacy is often that which, while forceful, takes
place quietly behind the scenes and avoids the public
confrontations that are such anathema in this society. In
this regard, post requests that information in this cable not
be cited publicly in any recounting of USG human rights
policy, particularly not until reconstruction of the Anglican
church in Brunei is complete and St. Andrew really does get
his church back. End Comment.
SKODON