Nun's testimony clears local Moslems, say youths

JAKARTA (JP): An association of religious youth groups yesterday revealed new findings from their investigation into the recent attack on Situbondo churches in East Java, including a nun's testimony that those who started the fires were not local Moslems.

Chatibul Umam Wiranu of the Islamic University Students Movement and his friends from Christian and other groups, said here yesterday it was impossible that Moslems initiated the Oct. 10 attack on the churches.

Chatibul said the Catholic nun told them that the rabid arsonists were not local residents, but outsiders connected with "a big political power (the students) would not dare to mention." He did not identify the nun, either.

The investigators were from the Indonesian Association of Christian Intelligentsia, the Christian Youths Movement, the Islamic University Students Movement, the Nationalist University Students Movement, the Christian University Students Movement and the Association of Catholic Students.

They were joined at the press conference announcing their findings by leaders of the youth wing of Indonesia's largest Moslem organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) whose Situbondo members were reported to have been involved in the attack.

These groups with other organizations set up a joint committee called "Solidarity for Situbondo."

Chatibul said the team had also discovered how wrong it would be to accuse local ulemas of instigating the attack.

"We found that no ulema was involved," he said.

"We have visited three pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), talked to ulemas, and read their instruction books," he said. "We learned how deeply religious the students of the pesantren were, how they were taught 'religious morality', and brotherhood by their ulemas."

"There is nothing in their book that teaches hatred of other religions and their symbols," Chatibul said.

Situbondo is a predominantly Moslem regency, and is widely known as a stronghold of the 30-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama led by prominent Abdurarahman Wahid.

Abdurrahman had immediately apologized for the attack which he believed may have involved NU local members. Another NU leader, Achmad Bagdja, had expressed regret over the incident but asserted that the organization was not behind the riots which claimed five lives.

Yesterday, Chatibul and his friends reiterated their conviction that the attack could not have been fueled by religious hatred. The youth leaders agreed that "political interests of a group or an individual" were behind the attack.

They did not elaborate, but Chatibul said the ill-informed and poor people of Situbondo were gullible and vulnerable to the machinations of "those acting for their own political interests." (26)