Your reports on the brutality against ethnic Chinese in Indonesia explain why overseas Chinese desperately want to see a strong and powerful China which is prepared to look after their interests when they are the victims of thuggery and racial discrimination.
Hundreds of law-abiding Indonesian-Chinese were systemically displaced, killed and raped this year, yet human rights groups so quick to condemn the Chinese Government were more restrained when it came to Indonesia.
In Indonesia (as well as in Malaysia), ethnic Chinese cannot join the civil service or military. This is blatant racial discrimination and a violation of human rights. It is a form of apartheid.
I urge Chinese communities around the world to stand up against this injustice by writing to the Indonesian Government.
The authorities must bring the culprits to justice and apologise to the Chinese community.
E. F. Y. LEE Wolverhampton, England
