NU may bring ninja killings before ICJ

NU may bring ninja killings before ICJ

JAKARTA (JP): The country's largest Moslem organization
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) may bring the case of the ninja killings
which have taken place across Java over the past few months to
the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Antara reported on
Monday.

Choirul Anam of the East Java NU chapter said President B.J.
Habibie's government has failed to show a serious effort to solve
the killings before the Nov. 30 deadline set by NU. Many of the
victims were NU members. NU has also raised the possibility that
its own members are involved in the killings, given that the
areas where the murders occurred in East Java are NU bases.

"We'll report all results of our investigation to NU
headquarters (PBNU in Jakarta), so it will be the headquarters
that will submit the results to the ICJ," said Anam, who heads
the team investigating the killings, in Surabaya.

He said 253 people have been killed by well-trained assassins
clad in black ninja outfits. The killings occurred in the East
Java towns of Banyuwangi, Jember, Situbondo, Bondowoso, Sampang,
Pamekasan and Pasuruan.

The agency did not say whether the death toll included the
dozens killed by mobs because they were thought to be "ninjas".

Anam dismissed suggestions that the killings are purely
criminal. "How come there were so many casualties in three months
within widely scattered areas, and most victims were NU members,"
he said.

Anam, who also heads the East Java-chapter of NU's People's
Awakening Party (PKB), said the organized killings initially
targeted 500 people.

He said the investigating team's findings were partly based on
recorded testimony from individuals questioned by NU who ordered
the killings and trained the killers.

Anam revealed that the weapons used in the killings were
special daggers inscribed with the likeness of a dragon. He also
discussed a controversial radio message sent out by Banyuwangi
Regent Turjono Purnomo Sidik on a list of 500 "black magic
practitioners" that the regent said needed protection from
vigilantes. Anam said the message was sent in February, not in
September as claimed by the regent.

"So the list of black magic practitioners and Koran teachers
became the operational targets of the perpetrators," he said.

The "scenario" of the assassinations, according to Anam, had
been planned five months before the killings peaked between
August through September. Seventy percent of the casualties were
NU members, he said, warning the government that it would leave a
"time bomb" if it did not solve the matter.

Separately, in Jakarta, PBNU Secretary-General Ahmad Bagdja
said the headquarters would announce its stance on the matter
after a meeting with NU scholars from across Java on Dec. 8
through Dec. 10 in Jakarta. "We'll evaluate the seriousness of
the state apparatus in handling this issue," he said.

Bagdja charged that the government's present efforts, such as
dragging several suspected killers into court, do not indicate a
serious effort to get to the root of the problem.

Bagda also warned that the violence could be repeated if left
unsettled.

He cited several instances of what he said were repetitions of
violence in Jakarta, such as the fatal shootings at Semanggi of
protesting students by the Army and police on Nov. 13 and the
Ketapang riots that claimed 14 lives on Nov. 22.

Bagdja, however, did not say whether the incidents were
related. Some parties have said that a power struggle among
political elites in Jakarta might be behind the massacres.

He said that if the killings were intended to pit members of
society against each other, or to prevent people from supporting
NU's popular political party -- the PKB -- then "they have
succeeded".

He added that people have become easily suspicious of
strangers, and that people have also removed PKB stickers from
their houses. "We truly want the people behind these killings
revealed," he said. (aan)