The Jakarta Post, December 03, 2003
Death threats continue against local PKB clerics
Ainur R. Sophiaan and Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya/Jakarta
More clerics with the National Awakening Party (PKB) have received death threats
following the recent slaying of a party leader in Lumajang regency, East Java, which
was believed to be politically motivated, PKB executives said on Tuesday.
Ahmad Firdaus, who heads the advocacy and human rights department of PKB East
Java, said he received reports from Muslim clerics in Gresik regency that anonymous
callers had threatened to kill them.
He declined to name the victims who received the threats.
Another PKB member, Nono Gustam, a resident of Banyuurip village in Sumber Batu
subdistrict, Jember regency, was killed on Monday by unidentified attackers, Firdaus
said.
He said Nono was rumored to be a black magician. How he was murdered was not
immediately clear.
Last Friday, local PKB leader Asmuni Ishak in Jatiroto subdistrict, Lumajang regency,
East Java, was stabbed to death by a gang of six people wearing masks and armed
with machetes, who broke into his house.
Asmuni's wife, Siti Mutmainah, survived the attack, but was severely wounded and is
receiving medical treatment.
Asmuni, PKB Lumajang's advisory board chairman, was the second party member to
be murdered in the past week. Earlier, Rafiq, a PKB activist in Jember, had been
murdered.
PKB executives said they believed the killing of Asmuni and death threats against
other PKB clerics in Gresik were politically motivated.
However, police brushed aside the suspicions, claiming that Asmuni's murder was
purely criminal in nature, despite the fact that his killers fled without making off with
any valuable goods.
"We are still investigating the case closely. We have dispatched a forensic team to
the victim's home," spokesman for East Java Police Sr. Comr. Sad Harunanto said in
Surabaya.
The police have concluded that the murder was a non-political crime, he said. "It's too
far-fetched to link it with other motives."
Cholil Bisri, a People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) deputy chairman from the PKB
faction, lamented the police for reaching such a conclusion while the investigation was
ongoing.
"How could the police say it is purely criminal before investigating the case
thoroughly, while indications of political motives are strong there," he told The Jakarta
Post on Tuesday.
"You know nothing was taken from the cleric's house in the incident," he argued.
Firdaus said the murder was well planned and none of Asmuni's neighbors were aware
of the attack as it was taking place.
Former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, who currently chairs the PKB board
of patrons, has said the killings were part of an attempt to terrorize his party, and
were reminiscent of what had happened ahead of the 1999 elections, which catapulted
him into the presidency.
Dozens of Muslim preachers linked to the PKB were beaten or hacked to death in a
number of different regencies across East Java in 1999, the reason for the killings
being that the clerics practiced black magic.
The killings remain a mystery, and little attempt appears to have been made to
uncover the truth behind the seemingly organized murders.
Gus Dur said a certain "national-level leader" was involved in the attempt to
demoralize his party's followers, but refused to identify the individual.
"I am sure what Gus Dur has said is true. There is a certain group deliberately
attempting to disrupt the PKB and the NU (Nahdlatul Ulama) in East Java ahead of
the 2004 elections," Firdaus said.
The NU, the country's largest Muslim organization, founded the PKB in 1999, when it
was headed by Gus Dur.
Firdaus, who is a member of the PKB team investigating the recent murders, said
there were indications that the killings were similar to those that took place in 1999.
"There is a lot of evidence that points to a similarity with the past incidents. But it's
not possible to disclose them now. Just wait until we complete the investigation," he
said.
He asked the police to be transparent in probing the recent killings.
East Java is known to be a PKB stronghold, and attacks on Muslim preachers there
could potentially trigger unrest.
The PKB won the most votes in the province, ahead of President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.
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