Death threats continue against local PKB clerics

Ainur R. Sophiaan and Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya/Jakarta

More clerics with the National Awakening Party (PKB) have received death threats following the recent slaying of a party leader in Lumajang regency, East Java, which was believed to be politically motivated, PKB executives said on Tuesday.

Ahmad Firdaus, who heads the advocacy and human rights department of PKB East Java, said he received reports from Muslim clerics in Gresik regency that anonymous callers had threatened to kill them.

He declined to name the victims who received the threats.

Another PKB member, Nono Gustam, a resident of Banyuurip village in Sumber Batu subdistrict, Jember regency, was killed on Monday by unidentified attackers, Firdaus said.

He said Nono was rumored to be a black magician. How he was murdered was not immediately clear.

Last Friday, local PKB leader Asmuni Ishak in Jatiroto subdistrict, Lumajang regency, East Java, was stabbed to death by a gang of six people wearing masks and armed with machetes, who broke into his house.

Asmuni's wife, Siti Mutmainah, survived the attack, but was severely wounded and is receiving medical treatment.

Asmuni, PKB Lumajang's advisory board chairman, was the second party member to be murdered in the past week. Earlier, Rafiq, a PKB activist in Jember, had been murdered.

PKB executives said they believed the killing of Asmuni and death threats against other PKB clerics in Gresik were politically motivated.

However, police brushed aside the suspicions, claiming that Asmuni's murder was purely criminal in nature, despite the fact that his killers fled without making off with any valuable goods.

"We are still investigating the case closely. We have dispatched a forensic team to the victim's home," spokesman for East Java Police Sr. Comr. Sad Harunanto said in Surabaya.

The police have concluded that the murder was a non-political crime, he said. "It's too far-fetched to link it with other motives."

Cholil Bisri, a People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) deputy chairman from the PKB faction, lamented the police for reaching such a conclusion while the investigation was ongoing.

"How could the police say it is purely criminal before investigating the case thoroughly, while indications of political motives are strong there," he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"You know nothing was taken from the cleric's house in the incident," he argued.

Firdaus said the murder was well planned and none of Asmuni's neighbors were aware of the attack as it was taking place.

Former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, who currently chairs the PKB board of patrons, has said the killings were part of an attempt to terrorize his party, and were reminiscent of what had happened ahead of the 1999 elections, which catapulted him into the presidency.

Dozens of Muslim preachers linked to the PKB were beaten or hacked to death in a number of different regencies across East Java in 1999, the reason for the killings being that the clerics practiced black magic.

The killings remain a mystery, and little attempt appears to have been made to uncover the truth behind the seemingly organized murders.

Gus Dur said a certain "national-level leader" was involved in the attempt to demoralize his party's followers, but refused to identify the individual.

"I am sure what Gus Dur has said is true. There is a certain group deliberately attempting to disrupt the PKB and the NU (Nahdlatul Ulama) in East Java ahead of the 2004 elections," Firdaus said.

The NU, the country's largest Muslim organization, founded the PKB in 1999, when it was headed by Gus Dur.

Firdaus, who is a member of the PKB team investigating the recent murders, said there were indications that the killings were similar to those that took place in 1999.

"There is a lot of evidence that points to a similarity with the past incidents. But it's not possible to disclose them now. Just wait until we complete the investigation," he said.

He asked the police to be transparent in probing the recent killings.

East Java is known to be a PKB stronghold, and attacks on Muslim preachers there could potentially trigger unrest.

The PKB won the most votes in the province, ahead of President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.