Abdurrahman opens boy scout meet amid protests

PURWOKERTO, Central Java (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid officially opened the 2001 National Boy Scout Jamboree at the Baturraden tourist resort by reciting Al Fatihah verses together with the audience in memory of Attorney General Baharuddin Lopa, who died in Riyadh on Tuesday.

The President, accompanied by First Lady Sinta Nuriyah, one of their daughters, Yenni Wahid, and the leader of the national boy scout movement, Safii Harahap, arrived at the venue at 2 p.m.

"Pak Lopa was a good man, therefore I hope that all boy scouts copy him," the President said before asking the audience to recite Al Fatihah, the opening verses of the holy Koran.

Around 10,000 boy scouts are participating in the national jamboree.

Later in his opening speech, the President said that he had been active in the boy scout movement from 1951 to 1957.

"That's why anyone who says that joining the Boy Scouts is useless knows nothing about scouting," he said to applause from the audience.

Soon after opening the jamboree, the President left for At- Taujih Islamic boarding school (pesantren) in the village of Leler, some 60 kilometers south of Baturraden.

He spent 30 minutes in the pesantren and then flew back to Jakarta.

Clashes between his supporters and protesters greeted the President's arrival in Purwokerto.

Four people were injured in the clashes.

The first disturbance took place at around 9:30 a.m. in front of the Jenderal Soedirman University campus on Jl. HR Bunyamin, some seven kilometers away from the Jamboree site, when university students were attacked a large group of unknown persons who had arrived on the scene by truck.

A second disturbance broke out at 1 p.m., one hour before the President and his entourages proceeded to the jamboree site.

There were three groups assembled at the jamboree site. The first group consisted of the President's supporters, the second the President's opponents and the third environmentalists, who claimed that the jamboree would only damage the environment.

It was not clear how the brawls started. But the coordinator of the President's supporters, Muchson, said "their enemies" were members of the Islamic Students Association (HMI). "They were planning to protest against the President. They planned everything last night."

"They joined forces with the environmental activists who were against the boy scout meeting. We attacked the anti-Abdurrahman groups but not the environmentalists," said Muchson. "We just wanted to get rid of those demonstrating against the arrival of the President." (45/sur)