Tarmizi Taher offers to mediate in NU dispute
Tarmizi Taher offers to mediate in NU dispute
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher yesterday called on the conflicting parties within the largest Moslem organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) to reconcile and offered to mediate for them.
"The best way is to ishlah, reconcile. Don't put down other people. Whoever is in the wrong should realize their mistake and make a correction," he said about the prolonged row between NU chairman Abdurrahman Wahid with his fiercest competitor in the 1994 chairmanship election, Abu Hasan.
"If asked to mediate, I would be willing to do so, (especially) if those senior ulemas prove to be unable to bring the two to reconcile. I'm ready, anytime," Tarmizi said further.
He criticized the two parties for engaging in mudslinging. "No one is exempted from faults. Our religion tells us never to slander anyone, because what if it turns out that we ourselves have committed even greater mistakes?" he said.
Abu Hasan plans to start today the "grand conference" of a rival leadership board he established last January after he was excluded from Abdurrahman's Central Executive Board. He also accused the organizers of the congress, held in Cipasung village, West Java, in Dec. 1994, of rigging the elections.
Abu said that some 1,000 members of his board, known as KPPNU, will attend the three-day gathering at the Haj Dormitory in Pondok Gede, East Jakarta.
Tarmizi yesterday also denied KPPNU leaders' claim that he had committed himself to opening the congress as a token of the government's support.
"Their claim is untrue. No one had asked me to open the gathering," he told the press during a visit in Yogyakarta earlier in the day.
He said he has no slightest intention to support the KPPNU at the expense of the NU because such a move would only serve to destabilize Indonesia's largest Moslem organization.
"I was surprised to hear the reports. They said I was scheduled to address the meeting as well. Come on. I have been on leave. I just got back to work on Monday," Tarmizi said. The minister had a two-month leave recuperating from what appeared to be a stroke.
Meanwhile, people in Abu's camp proceeded with their preparation for the meeting. Anshori told The Jakarta Post by telephone that Abu Hasan will open the meeting himself.
He also said that, by yesterday afternoon, around 200 members and supporters of KPPNU have arrived at the dormitory. They are from the provinces of South Sulawesi, Lampung, Aceh, East Timor, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, and Irian Jaya.
Abdurrahman had earlier said he suspected that only NU members from the provinces of Riau, Jambi and West Sumatra--the stronghold of Abu Hasan--will attend the meeting.
In a bid to win wider support, KPPNU has invited all NU branch leaders in Central Java to attend the three-day gathering in Jakarta but there is no independent information on how many of them are coming.
Chief of NU's Central Java branch Achmad, who meet with all regency branches in Semarang yesterday, called for a boycott of the KPPNU gathering.
He threatened to take punitive action against NU members who attend the meeting which is not sanctioned by the Central Executive Board.
Achmad said in Central Java that KPPNU supporters have circulated anonymous leaflets calling for local NU members to attend Abu Hasan's gathering.
"Beside supporting the KPPNU, the leaflets discredit NU leaders elected in the 1994 congress in Cipasung," he told The Jakarta Post.
The deepening conflict between Abdurrahman and Abu has worried NU activist Iedil Suryadi, a senior House member from the United Development Party (PPP).
He called on all Moslem ulemas to help the two figures to reconcile for the good of the NU.
He said he doubts Abdurrahman means to disseminate Shiite Islamic teaching in predominantly Sunni Indonesia, as the Abu Hasan camp charges.
"NU members will not accept Shiite teachings," he said. (swe/har/pan/01)