BY BOB AIKEN
SYDNEY, Australia - Massive student-led protests for
democratic reforms took place across the Indonesian capital,
Jakarta, November 12-13. More than 150,000 students took part
in the mobilizations, along with hundreds of thousands of
working people. The state radio station Radio Republic
Indonesia reported 1 million on the streets November 12.
The protests, against a special November 10-13 session of Indonesia's parliament, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), were the largest since former president Suharto resigned May 21 after more than 30 years of dictatorial rule.
The actions began several days earlier with sharpening confrontations unfolding between the army, police, and thousands of recently organized vigilantes on the one hand, and students, workers, and other residents on the other.
Troops fired on the protests, killing at least 15 people - two on November 12, and more the following day, with more than 300 wounded.
Jakarta Post reporters described clashes that took place late November 13 at Atma Jaya University as a "bloody massacre" instigated by soldiers. Other reports said some of the soldiers dropped into a kneeling position to get a more accurate aim at the protesters, and that troops fired rubber bullets indiscriminately at close range into the crowd, which numbered in the tens of thousands. The shooting continued for two hours.
The following day angry crowds targeted the security forces, burning military vehicles and police posts, and attempting to torch two major police headquarters. Military tents were set on fire near the parliament, and several vehicles including an army truck were burned near the University of Indonesia campus.
While some of the crowds targeted Chinese-owned shops for looting, tens of thousands converged on the parliament building. Sydney Morning Herald reporter Louise Williams wrote, "On the western approach to the parliament thousands of angry local residents were walking towards police lines, gathering rock and sticks, and shouting insults at the security forces."
A summary of information, based on on-the-scene reports from Jakarta, released by Sydney-based Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) November 14, said that over November 12-13 "as students moved along the main thoroughfares, the neighborhood communities were encouraged to join the demonstrations." By late afternoon on November 12 "between 500,000 and one million people were moving along the streets."
"Marshals were assigned along the route to protect shops owned by Indonesian Chinese as well as banks. One lane was kept open so some traffic could pass. The huge mobilisation over the two days took place with almost no damage to property," the update reported.
Indonesian president B.J. Habibie, formerly Suharto's vice president, and armed forces chief General Wiranto have sought to present themselves as a break from the Suharto regime. They have faced almost daily protests across Indonesia in recent months, over corruption, police and military brutality, and land and labor rights.
Confronted with the sharpest crisis since he replaced Suharto in May, Habibie ordered Wiranto to take "whatever actions are necessary" to deal with "acts of rebellion" against his government.
The student protests have been demanding that the political role of the military, which reaches down to the village level, be ended, and that former president Suharto and members of his family who used governmental power to enrich themselves be brought to trial for corruption. A central demand coming increasingly to the fore is that the Habibie administration be immediately replaced by a caretaker government to organize elections.
With the killings by the military November 12-13, protesters are also now calling for Wiranto's resignation or dismissal.
The students denounced the MPR itself as a relic of the old regime with no credibility. Of the 1,000 members of the assembly, 575 were appointed under Suharto, with some since replaced by Habibie. The remaining 425 were elected in polls last year rigged in favor of the regime's organization, Golkar.
Habibie convened the MPR to ratify the minimal reforms being proposed by the regime. These included reducing the military's quota of seats in parliament from 75 to 55 and calling elections for a new parliament in May or June next year, which would then elect a new president in December 1999.
Prior to the MPR session four prominent bourgeois opposition figures - Megawati Sukarnoputri, Amien Rais, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, the governor of Jogyakarta - issued a joint statement calling for the MPR to implement a series of reforms, including bring the presidential elections forward within three months. Early polls show 40 percent support for Megawati with 4 percent for Habibie.
The four politicians all called on the students to back down from their protests. Megawati and Wahid encouraged the students to "preserve your energy" while Rais, who played a prominent role in the student protests against Suharto at the beginning of 1998, said, "If we join forces [with the students] to foil" the MPR session "the anarchic situation will just drag on."
Rais called for calm, rejecting the students' demands for the dismissal of the MPR and the Habibie government, declaring, "I don't believe a revolution is appropriate for now."
Gov't sets stage for assault on students
The regime announced before the MPR session began that
30,000 troops and a civilian paramilitary force of 125,000 had
been mobilized to defend parliament in anticipation of the
student protests. A large rally of 70,000 to support the MPR
was also organized November 5.
As students prepared for a showdown, 50,000 rallied at the University of Indonesia campus November 6, coinciding with a protest of 10,000 at the parliament.
The deployment of the vigilantes backfired. At least four of them were killed as local residents weighed into the battles on the side of the students. "Local people around the Proclamation Monument, which has been occupied by the Civil Security for two days, besieged them and were joined by tens of thousands of students," an account in Info-Pembebasan reported November 11. Before the gangs were forced to retreat they had "terrorized the people" for two days "using weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, knives and swords," the report said.
Protests against the killings of civilians by the military in Jakarta took place in at least 16 cities across Indonesia November 14, including 20,000 in Bandung, and 10,000 in Medan where the airport was occupied. Demonstrations against the MPR session were also held across the country before it convened, including one in Lampung where 4,000 farmers joined students to march the 15 kilometers from Lampung University to the governor's office where they set up camp.
The protests have been fueled by the impact of the severe economic crisis on tens of millions of workers and farmers in Indonesia. The rupiah, the Indonesian currency, has plummeted since July 1997 and is currently trading at about 8,000 to the dollar. Prices have skyrocketed, especially for anything imported, along with unemployment. The Sydney Morning Herald quoted one young protester saying, "We support the students from behind. Habibie has failed to solve the economic crisis, many of us don't have jobs and our life is very difficult. Habibie is just the puppet of Suharto."
Jakarta student Bagas Sweta Bhaskara told the Militant in a phone interview that, "There is a real possibility of mass hunger, in districts like Cengkareng [near the airport and traditional fishing villages] and Tanjungpriuk [near the Jakarta docks]. Both of these are among the poorest areas in Jakarta."
"The government tried to set up subsidized rice sales, at R2,000 a kilo," he said, but "some people can't even afford that," having a daily income of R1,000 or less. The cheapest nonsubsidized rice is R2,400 to R2,600, he said.
The government officially estimates that 40 percent of the country's 200 million people live in poverty, with 17 million facing severe food shortages.
In a move aimed at intimidating protesters, 10 opposition figures, mainly from the National Front group, dominated by retired military officers, were detained November 16. They had issued a statement echoing student demands that Habibie be replaced.
Also on November 16 some 5,000 people took part in the funeral of Herru Sudibyo, one of the students shot near the parliament, at Cilinang cemetery, about 50 kilometers north of Jakarta. More student protests are expected.
Bob Aiken is a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.