By Cindy Shiner
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, February 16, 1998; Page A24

PAMANUKAN, Indonesia, Feb. 15—For the ethnic Chinese residents of this small Indonesian town, the writing is on the wall.

"Destroy those damn Chinese."

"Money-hungry Chinese fools."

"I love Muslims."

Across Pamanukan and along the road leading to it from the capital, Jakarta, about 100 miles away, phrases such as these were scrawled on gates, homes and shops by Muslims, who form a majority of the Indonesian population, as rioting and looting swept through the region on Friday and Saturday during protests over price hikes.

"The most terrible thing to me was they wrote something like 'Jesus is a dog,' " said an elderly Christian Chinese man here, breaking into sobs.

"What's the relationship between the Chinese and Jesus? That is my religion, and if it is my God why should they insult me? There is no connection between Jesus and prices," he said.

The man, who asked that neither his identity nor his business be identified, is in hiding with nine relatives. He said his business wasn't damaged because he had paid soldiers to guard his property.

Despite the extra security, he has spent two days indoors, smoking cigarettes and worrying about his future. He plans to move some valuables to another location but only under cover of night.

The Chinese make up only 3 percent of Indonesia's 202 million people but they control most of the country's wealth, inspiring resentment during times of political and economic uncertainty.

In addition, many of the Chinese here are Christian.

Dozens of Chinese-owned stores, restaurants, houses and churches were burned to the ground during the rioting, and at least three people, whose ethnicity is unknown, were killed.

The official Antara news agency reported today that two others were killed on the resort island of Lombok in more rioting.

More than 15 towns have been hit by violent protests over price increases in the past two months.

Observers say the unrest likely will increase before the presidential election in March and the lifting of fuel subsidies in April. President Suharto, running for a seventh five-year term, is almost certain to win because the vote is conducted by a committee largely appointed by him.

Calls have been mounting for him to step down as Indonesians increasingly feel the pinch of an economic crisis that began seven months ago.

Inflation has soared, and the value of the rupiah, Indonesia's currency, has plunged 70 percent.

In the shop of the Chinese man in hiding, a pot of tea sells for 1,000 rupiahs -- about 12 cents. That is what Indonesian scrap collector Sumiaji makes selling two pounds of aluminum.

Wearing a black hat and a towel draped over his neck to soak up sweat in the afternoon heat, Sumiaji shuffled through the ashen hull of the Taman Sari restaurant, scavenging for aluminum cans.

"I've been doing this for three years, but usually I do it in a little more respectable way," said Sumiaji, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

The restaurant was torched in Friday's rioting. "I will be very upset if the government cannot do something useful to help people, especially to decrease the prices. At the time being, my family and many other Indonesians are suffering a lot," Sumiaji said.

He noted that some Chinese have tried to help poor Indonesians by hiring them but cautioned that "they should realize that they stay together with Indonesian people."

"I don't want them to . . . act too proud, especially to local people," he said.

The Chinese merchant said that on Friday, just before rioting broke out, wealthy members of his community were planning to collect about $300 to buy rice to distribute to needy people. A Catholic women's group also was preparing to set up a reduced-price market.

"But unfortunately this tragedy happened," he said.

Some Muslims also have tried to appease the increasingly angry local population and have called for calm.

Leaders of the nation's largest Muslim organization, the Nahdatul Ulama, have toured the countryside urging Indonesians to eat other foods if they cannot afford rice, rather than riot.

Today, the leader of another Muslim organization, Amien Rais, called on Indonesians to avoid using the Chinese as scapegoats for their economic woes and said it was better to turn their anger against the government.

Political and economic turmoil in the mid-1960s sparked attacks on ethnic Chinese and communists that left thousands of people dead.

The Chinese merchant says it isn't the violence that bothers him so much as the fact that he doesn't understand it. His family has lived in Indonesia for 60 years.

"I was born in Indonesia and probably will die in Indonesia, so why do they treat us like this?"