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Indonesian Muslims Warn Of Unrest If Wahid Impeached
JAKARTA, Feb 6 (News Agencies) - Indonesia's largest Muslim group, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), on Tuesday warned that a fast-tracked session of the national assembly to impeach President Abdurrahman Wahid would trigger violence.
"A hastened [special session] ... will open the way to conflict," NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi told a press conference here.
His warning came as thousands of Wahid's supporters in East Java took to the streets for a fourth straight day as legislators said they were trying to gather enough petition signatures to call the emergency parliamentary session.
Wahid led the NU, which boasts 35 million members mainly from rural areas on the country's main island of Java, for 15 years before he was elected president 15 months ago.
Muzadi said the parliament, which last week censured Wahid for alleged involvement in two financial scandals, would have to be responsible for any violence triggered by efforts to oust the president.
He also repeated an earlier warning that his group might not be able to hold back its members' wrath over the censure.
In East Java Tuesday some 1,000 pro-Wahid protestors occupied the port in Banyuwangi for three hours, cutting off ferry traffic to the resort island of Bali.
On Monday, hundreds of Wahid supporters ran riot in three East Java towns, trashing and torching offices of the former ruling Golkar party.
Golkar MPs were among politicians who had advocated a damaging censure motion against Wahid for his alleged involvement in the two scandals.
Wahid, speaking from the presidential palace Tuesday, said he had issued instructions to his followers to forsake violence and trust in the democratic process.
"What's the point of destruction? Let everything go along according to the democratic process. Just believe that nothing will happen," he said.
Wahid has been under mounting pressure to step down and hand over to Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose Indonesian Democratic Party Struggle (PDIP) party holds the largest bloc of seats in the 700-seat parliament.
NU protestors Tuesday also pelted a college campus affiliated to the second largest Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah, and destroyed its sign. No casualties were reported in the incidents.
Wahid's arch political rival, national assembly speaker Amien Rais, once chaired the Muhammadiyah.
Rais, who led a loose alliance that helped catapult Wahid to power 15 months ago, has been at the forefront of calls for an immediate special session of the national assembly to impeach the president.
"We are looking into the possibility of hastening the convening of a special session," Rais was quoted as saying by the Media Indonesia daily, as MPs said they were soliciting signatures for a petition calling for the session.
Rais warned a vacuum resulting from the long period of impeachment could be filled with "uncertainties and social and political upheaval."
Under the censure, Wahid is given three months to mend his ways. If the parliament is still not satisfied with his performance, it will issue another rebuke, dragging out the process for four months.
Megawati's party said Tuesday its members would not back the petition.
A parliamentary report found the president "could be suspected" of involvement in the two scandals, the embezzlement of almost $4 million of state funds, and of misleading the public over 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.
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