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Thousands Rally In Indonesia Against Return Of Communism
by Victor Tjahjadi
JAKARTA, April 7 (AFP) - Thousands of Indonesian Muslims took to the streets in at least three cities, including the capital, on Friday to protest the president's proposal to lift a decades-long ban on communism.
In Jakarta, some 8,000 Muslims protested in front of the Merdeka Palace and marched down a main avenue to a downtown roundabout in a peaceful protest.
Thousands took to the streets in Medan, North Sumatra, marching to the provincial parliament and burning tires, the SCTV television station said.
In Jambi, central Sumatra, hundreds of members and supporters of the Indonesian Muslim Front (FUII) marched from the state-run Islamic university to the local parliament and governor's office about half a kilometer (mile) away to protest the proposal.
The protestors in Jambi also rejected any move to open ties with Israel, as long as the Palestine issue was not settled.
In Jakarta, the protestors chanted "Allah is great" and "Reject Communism," and also launched tirades against Zionism and burned both the Israeli and a communist hammer and sickle flag.
They marched the 400 meters (440 yards) from Jakarta's Istiqlal main mosque to the palace after Friday prayers.
After more that 30 minutes there, they marched down the main avenue to the roundabout some 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles) south.
"FUII strongly rejects the proposal of President Abdurrahman Wahid to revoke the MPR decree number 25 of 1966," the group said in a statement.
It was referring to a decree issued by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) – the country's highest legislative body – that endorsed a decision by former president Suharto to ban communism, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and its teachings.
The ban followed an abortive coup attempt in 1965 which was blamed on the PKI. Suharto, then a lieutenant general in the army's Kostrad strategic reserve, rose to power after leading the campaign against the coup plotters.
Some 500,000 people by official count were killed in a nationwide purge of members of the communist party and its affiliated organizations and hundreds of thousands more were jailed.
"Gus Dur [President Wahid], history proves that communism is not fit to live in Indonesia," read one huge banner displayed by the Jakarta protestors.
"Kick out Zionism and communism" said a long yellow banner carried by veiled Muslim women at the front of their own column of protestors.
Another banner warned of "communist agents in the government."
FUII coordinator Bernardus Doni Abduljabar, a former Roman Catholic, said the demonstration was not aimed at trying to oust Wahid.
He also accused several people around the president, including state secretary Bondan Gunawan, as steering Wahid towards the left.
Several human rights activists favor an end to the ban on communists but others have been silent on the issue, reflecting the strong passions whipped up by the Suharto regime over the past three decades.
Wahid's People's Awakening Party has been the only political party to support him in his move while others, especially an umbrella group of several small Muslim parties, have led the opposition to it.
The Muslim party United Development Party, third runner in the 1999 elections, will withdraw its only minister in the cabinet if the ban is lifted, its chairman Hamzah Haz said, quoted in the Indonesian Observer.
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