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Parliament Hands Wahid Dossiers To Police, Supporters Run Riot
JAKARTA, Feb 5 (News Agencies) - Indonesia's parliament on Monday handed files on President Abdurrahman Wahid's alleged involvement in two financial scandals over to police and prosecutors as Wahid supporters ran amok in East Java in protest.
House speaker Akbar Tanjung handed copies of a parliamentary report allegedly implicating Wahid to Attorney General Marzuki Darsuman and National Police Chief Suroyo Bimantoro, in the presence of scores of journalists.
"Today we are giving to the attorney general and the police chief ... matters relating to violations of the law, so that they can process it further," Tanjung said.
But both Darusman and Bimantoro made it clear they would not take any immediate legal action against the beleaguered Wahid, saying they would first have to study the dossiers.
Wahid faces possible impeachment over a politically-damaging parliament censure based on the report, and is fending off growing demands he stand down and hand power to his vice president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
"We, of course, need to check and study this material," said Darusman, a Wahid appointee, said, noting there "is no law providing for the arrest of a president."
Tanjung also said parliament had already handed over a written copy of the censure motion to Wahid on Friday - satisfying both the "political and legal" aspects of the scandals, dubbed Bruneigate and Bulogate by the press.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Wahid supporters went on a rampage in three towns in East Java town, trashing and torching offices of the former ruling Golkar party.
Police said a mob broke into the Golkar office in Situbondo, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, and set it ablaze.
"Fortunately, not the whole office was destroyed and its staff managed to escape," police chief Soli Sariyanto said.
The protestors also felled trees, blocked roads with the tree trunks, and trashed Golkar offices in two other towns.
In Surabaya, thousands of pro-Wahid protestors gathered outside the provincial parliament building, blocking the streets with trucks and cars.
They also called for the censure motion be cancelled and threatened to travel to Jakarta if their demands were not met.
Presidential spokesman Wimar Witoelar said Wahid condemned the violence.
He "refuses to be supported by means of violence and street protests ... If the public want to support the president, do not use violence," Witoelar quoted Wahid as saying.
Golkar MPs last week strongly supported the censure motion, as did Megawati's party and the military faction in parliament.
Most of the protestors were members of the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Islamic group that Wahid chaired for 15 years before he became the country's first democratically elected president in October 1999.
Parliament leaders late Monday debated calling a special session of the national assembly in the face of "anarchy," but had only reached the conclusion that "it would be possible" to call one.
The parliament probe found Wahid could "be suspected of" involvement Bulogate and had made inconsistent statements in connection with Bruneigate, the spending of a $2 million donation from the Sultan of Brunei.
Bulogate concerns the theft of $3.9 million from the state food distribution agency Bulog, allegedly by Wahid's masseur.
Despite the censure and mounting calls for his resignation, Wahid, a virtually blind moderate Muslim scholar, has pledged to serve out his term until 2004, saying the people still support him.
"I love this country very much. I will never abandon it in a state of mess," he said in Bogor.
Wahid has also claimed he still has the backing of Megawati, who has remained silent on the issue, and the military.
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