Violence forestalled?

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).