NU asks president to take firm, wise action in Bibit-Chandra case

Jakarta, NU Online
The Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to take firm and wise action in connection with developments in the Bibit-Chandra case.

"In a situation like now, firmness and wisdom are important. Institutions must be saved and those who are guilty must be dealt with," NU General Chairman KH Hasyim Muzadi said here on Thursday<>.

He said the President must take action because the situation faced in the Bibit-Chandra case was abnormal and therefore the procedures to be used for dealing with the matter could not be the normal ones.

"This is not a question of intervention or non-intervention. It is about the responsibility of the President as head of state," he said.

He said the President must immediately take action before the people took things into their own hands.

"He must not delay taking action (because) when the people act they may become anarchic," he said.

Hasyim said the state and state institutions must be saved from the worst scenario in the Bibit-Chandra case`s fallout.

"What happens now is a game played by individuals that is affecting state institutions," he said.

These problematic persons, he said, must be removed from the state institutions but without necessarily damaging the institutions.

Quoting a saying he said it was not necessary "to burn a house just to get rid of rats."

He said the police, the attorney general`s office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) must be saved, adding, without law enforcement institutions there would be anarchy. (ant)