Yamisa foundation 'not welcome' in S. Sulawesi

Jupriadi, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

The South Sulawesi administration has banned an Islamic foundation from operating in the province.

Governor H.Z.B. Palaguna has issued an order to all regents and mayors in the province not to recognize the Foundation for Islamic Ahlusunnah Wal Jamaah Mission (Yamisa) as a social organization.

The organization has promised to give members individual payouts of Rp 400,000 per month without giving anything in return.

Makassar Police chief Sr. Comr. Amin Salem said on Monday that Yamisa is an outlawed organization in the province. "There is no Yamisa here. We ban it," he said.

The speaker of the South Sulawesi provincial legislative council, Nurdin Mangkana, lauded the local government's firm action against Yamisa, saying that it was aimed at preventing "negative possibilities" from brewing due to the foundation's presence.

Questionable organizations have often been blamed for fanning sectarian conflicts in a number of provinces.

"Yamisa has several times applied for a permit from the government but it has never allowed the organization to exist here," he told The Jakarta Post, while showing a copy of the gubernatorial instruction dated Feb. 27.

The Jakarta-based foundation, established in August 2000, has also been banned in West Nusa Tenggara. However, the ban appeared ineffective as the foundation defiantly set up branches there and in several other provinces.

Members are each offered Rp 400,000 per month for an unlimited amount of years and regional executives are each given Rp 12 million per month.

Yamisa top leader, Abdurrahman, said the money was derived from the inheritances of past monarchs: Sriwijaya, Blambangan, Majapahit, Mataram, Bali, Kediri, Padjadjaran, Singasari, Kutai and Medang Kamulan as well as from accounts in Swiss banks he claimed belonged to first president Sukarno.

Abdurrahman told a provincial legislature hearing in South Sulawesi in April, that Yamisa did not need a permit from the government to disburse the funds to people whom, he said, were the rightful owners.

During the hearing, Abdurrahman showed a video featuring his foundation's wealth in an effort to convince legislators.

But some members say Yamisa occasionally broke its promises.

"We have been promised (money) three times. But nothing has come of it," a Yamisa member in Makassar, Patta, 42, told the Post. He said, however, he was waiting patiently for the funds.

A 28-year-old executive of Makassar's Yamisa branch, identified only as Dwi, acknowledged that there had been three delays of payouts.

"The delays occurred because we were still waiting for relevant data from the central office," he said.

Despite the ban, Dwi said, Yamisa had built 27 branches in South Sulawesi with hundreds of thousands of people registering to join the foundation.