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Mounting Protests Win Wahid Respite
by Kazi Mahmood for IslamOnline
Kuala Lumpur, March 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Mounting protests in Jakarta have won embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid a weekend of respite.
Friday saw thousands of pro-Wahid supporters responding to the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Wahid's calls to counter his foes and students demonstrating against him in the capital city.
Wahid's supporters performed Friday prayers at parliament after most of them spent the night there, as their leaders threatened to deploy several million more NU supporters for street rallies around the country to defend the head of state.
The demonstrators arrived at the House of Representatives compound Thursday morning and spent the night there amid tight security.
Pledging support for Wahid to stay in power until his full five-year term ends in 2004, they demanded that parliament cease attempts to oust the president by revoking its memorandum of censure against him.
"We are ready to die for Gus Dur," shouted demonstrators, referring to Wahid's popular nickname, press reports say.
On Thursday, several thousand Wahid supporters in East Java promised to physically eliminate Wahid's nemesis and foe, People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Chairman Amien Rais, leader of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Rais has so far refused to engage his approximately 20 million supporters from the Muhammadiya group, the second largest Muslim based organization in the vastly Muslim nation.
Pro-Wahid protesters also urged House Speaker Akbar Tandjung and Rais to resign from their posts, saying they will hunt down all those who support the removal of Wahid as president.
Rais and Tandjung supported Wahid to become the country's first democratically elected president in October 1999, defeating Megawati Sukarnoputri in the process.
They have since called for his resignation, with Rais openly saying he would hasten a special Assembly session to impeach Wahid.
The protesters' third demand was to disband the Golkar Party, the political vehicle of former president Suharto during his 32-year rule, now chaired by Tandjung.
Golkar's legislators have been at the forefront of calls for Wahid's resignation or ouster after 17 months in office. Golkar remains the second largest party in the country despite the waves of reformasi that influenced Suharto's resignation in 1998.
Also on Thursday, some 5,000 Wahid loyalists blocked the East Java port of Ketapang and several highways connecting it to other Java towns in a show of support for the president.
East Java is Wahid's home province, the main stronghold of the nation's largest Muslim organization, the NU that Wahid once led until a few months before he became president in 1999.
Tens of thousands of other Wahid supporters, mostly from the 40-million strong NU, reportedly traveled to Jakarta to join yesterday's parliament rally.
The traveling supporters included hundreds of members of "suicide squads" who have sworn to die for Wahid and believe they are protected by magic charms and spells.
NU top leader Hasyim Muzadi has threatened to mobilize millions of his members to Jakarta to put pressure on the parliament to stop attempts to depose Wahid.
Muzadi also warned that the political brawling over the president's fate could trigger more bloodshed and prompt the military to seize power, ending a brief attempt at civilian democracy.
"In one day, NU can take one or two million people to Jakarta to defend the president. That also has its dangers," Muzadi told news agencies late Thursday in the East Java town of Malang.
"These are not empty words," said Affandi Alwi, a member of one suicide squad, which calls itself the "Movement Brave Enough to Die Defending Gus Dur".
NU executive Fachru Razid was quoted Friday by news agencies as saying that Wahid supporters would hold a major protest in Jakarta on March 20th, the day of an expected anti-Wahid rally in the capital.
"Because the protests against Gus Dur will reach their peak on March 20th, our action will also reach its peak on March 20th in Jakarta. Only God knows what will happen on that day," he said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of anti-Wahid students marched through downtown Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province.
Last Monday, some 10,000 anti-Wahid protesters besieged the presidential complex with some spending two nights in parliament before leaving to avoid trouble with Wahid supporters.
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