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Wahid Orders Security Restored As Impeachment Looms
JAKARTA, May 28 (News Agencies) - President Abdurrahman Wahid on Monday commanded his top security minister to restore order in Indonesia but stopped short of carrying out a threat to declare a state of emergency two days before a showdown with parliament.
"I am ordering the coordinating minister for politics, social and security affairs to take the necessary actions ... coordinating with the security apparatus ... to overcome the crisis and restore order, security and law as soon as possible," said a presidential announcement.
The order came two days before a planned plenary of the lower house of parliament (DPR) widely expected to push for Wahid's impeachment over charges that he may have been involved in two financial scandals, and for incompetent leadership.
The attorney general's office said late Monday that it had found no evidence of Wahid's involvement in the two scandals, but that the most serious case, involving the theft of four million dollars from a government agency, was still open.
Under an emergency, Wahid, who is half-blind and needs help to walk, would have the power to dissolve the parliament before it could act to impeach him.
But Wahid's foes in parliament gave no indication that his announcement Monday would derail their drive to impeach the president, which has been led by the party of his vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Megawati has remained silent on a last-ditch offer by Wahid Friday to hand her his "constitutional powers" as a compromise solution to the leadership crisis.
Speaking later Monday, after talks with ministers and military and police chiefs, Coordinating Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the orders handed to him fell within the scope of his work and contained "no excessive mandate."
"There is no imposition of any state of emergency and there is no dissolution of the DPR or the MPR [the national assembly]," he said.
Yudhoyono said that in the next couple of weeks he would assure security and order across Indonesia and encourage politicians to find a peaceful solution to the current conflict.
The next three months would be critical, he said, without elaborating.
But MPs shrugged off the statement and said there was no emergency.
Alvin Lie, one of the MPs seeking Wahid's ouster, called the move "half-hearted," and said it reflected the president's lack of confidence in carrying out his threat to declare an emergency.
Wahid, the country's first democratically elected president, has repeatedly threatened to impose an emergency if the DPR goes ahead on Wednesday with impeachment process.
Defense Minister Muhammad Mahfud called the order "a normal instruction" which will be implemented by the armed forces and the police.
Yudhoyono, a retired army general, emphasized that power had not been handed to the military.
Kusnanto Anggoro, an analyst at Center for Scientific and International Studies (CSIS), said Wahid had "weakened his own position by issuing such an unclear order when he was expected to declare a state of emergency."
Wahid's announcement left the financial markets cold, with the stock market index closing 0.7% higher at 392.788 while the rupiah weakened slightly to around 11,580/11,610 to the dollar.
Earlier Monday, police went on top alert across the country following violence by thousands of Wahid supporters in East Java - the president's power base - which left highways blockaded and buildings linked to Wahid's foes vandalized.
More than 400 of his supporters arrived in Jakarta by train Monday, raising fears they would bring the violence to the capital.
Jakarta police have said they would shoot any protestors who trespass into the parliament ground Wednesday.
Speaking before the nationally broadcast order, Wahid said that: "If the country becomes a battle field ... the people would be the victims."
He also hit out at the press for "character assassination," and repeated that under Indonesia's presidential system, the parliament cannot depose the president.
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