Violence forestalled?

However one looks at it, the recommendations made by the recently concluded plenary meeting of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Cilegon, Banten, must be a sort of anticlimax.

As we all know, Indonesia's political landscape is at present divided into two sharply opposing camps, with those who are for Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid maintaining his presidency until the end of his term in 2004 standing on one side of the divide and those who want him to go as soon as possible on the other.

For the President's opponents, the recommendations that emerged from the Cilegon meeting are, at least to a certain degree, gratifying enough. At least the NU leaders present at the meeting rejected the use of violence to defend the President. Amien Rais, who is one of the most outspoken political antagonists of Gus Dur, as well as being the speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and a former chairman of the Muhammadiyah Islamic organization, saw in it reason enough to express his gratitude to the NU leaders.

As NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi told reporters after the meeting on Sunday, his organization would sincerely accept the reality of Gus Dur being deposed as President, but only if he were to be replaced through constitutional political procedures.

In the present case, however, Hasyim explained, the NU religious leaders (kyai) felt that Gus Dur was being ousted by force and unfair means. So, he said, the kyai thought they had to defend the President -- not because he was a kyai and a former NU chairman, but "as part of the effort to fight tyranny". But while the NU leaders at the Cilegon meeting rejected the planned use of violence or calls for NU members to volunteer for a jihad to defend the President, they underscored the fact that this move was a response to the attempts by Gus Dur's political adversaries to oust him from power by force.

Furthermore, the meeting approved of plans to take resolute action against bughot (an attempt to overthrow a lawfully established government according to Islamic law), calls for a jihad and plans to hold a istighotsah (mass prayer meeting) on April 29 -- the day before the House of Representatives is scheduled to convene to serve a second memorandum of censure on the President, which technically would open the way for impeachment procedures against the President to be initiated.

To people already skeptical, those two points -- the apparent dilution of the statement of the rejection of violence by putting the blame on the other side and sticking to the recommendations on bughot and jihad proposed some time ago by a meeting of kyai in Sukabumi, West Java -- are not particularly encouraging. Furthermore, the Cilegon meeting failed to specifically condemn or put an end to plans by Gus Dur's supporters in East Java to send jihad volunteers to Jakarta to keep the President in power.

Such skepticism appears to also be shared by the market, with the rupiah slipping further to near the 11,000 rupiah per U.S. dollar level on Tuesday. The rupiah had already fallen to Rp 10,830-Rp 10,850 by midday on Tuesday. As of Tuesday some 50,000 hard-core Gus Dur supporters, believed to be mostly NU members, had registered as volunteers who were ready to die for Gus Dur. However, polls conducted by Metro TV television station in Jakarta on Monday evening showed that an overwhelming majority of Indonesians were against the NU holding an istighotsah mass prayer meeting on April 29 -- this despite assurances from NU leaders that the meeting was intended merely to pray for the President's well-being.

For the present, Jakarta's citizenry can only hope that their fears of violence and bloodshed in the near future will remain unsubstantiated. Violence at this stage would not only plunge the country into still greater disaster, it would no doubt deliver a devastating blow to the prestige of President Abdurrahman Wahid, the NU and Abdurrahman's small and fledgling National Awakening Party (PKB).