Jakarta – Student reformists who helped topple former Indonesian president Suharto two years ago reacted with anger and disgust Thursday at his failure to show up at the start of his corruption trial.

"This is a show trial," yelled one student leader, to the cheers of the 200 protestors who had gathered outside the iron gates of the ministry building where the trial opened with the defendant's chair empty. "We will continue to push for a trial by the people ... not like the trial we saw today, which is a farce," said a spokesman for the City Forum, an umbrella student group.

Some 100 City Forum protestors marched along Jakarta's main boulevard following the postponement of the trial, stopping to rally outside buildings and a five-star hotel they said were symbols of Suharto's ill-gotten wealth.

Protest leader Adian said they were enacting a "people's seizure of Suharto's assets and sources of wealth." The students would continue to target buildings "symblic of Suharto's power" in the coming days when they would "take to the streets in huge numbers," he added.

President Abdurrahman Wahid's promised pardon of the former dictator, should he ever be tried and found guilty, also came in for harsh condemnation outside the trial venue.

"We are extremely worried and pessimistic, especially as the man who sits as president in this country has promised to pardon Suharto," shouted one student leader outside the trial venue. "Please put on a real trial, not a soap opera," yelled another, as unseasonal heavy rain drenched the increasingly angry crowd of students, but failed to drive them away. "Because if there's no real trial, the people will take justice into their own hands," he threatened.

It was Indonesia's students who helped bring the seemingly invincible Suharto to his knees in May 1998 with mass street protests and a non-stop sit-in of parliament. Some of the same students were outside the court Thursday in the hope of seeing the process they began brought to its climax.

But many of them said they were beginning to be reminded of the former tyrant's invincibility. "This shows Suharto is still untouchable," said Dede, who carried a banner that read "Try Suharto, Sick or Not!"

Near him, Ria, another veteran of the 1998 protests, said she was "extremely disappointed" at the judge's decision to postpone the trial for another two weeks until September 14. "I was full of optimism back then that Suharto would be brought to trial," she told AFP. "I was even more optimistic when Gus Dur came to power," she said using President Wahid's nickname. "But now we are beginning to see the reality, that the court system is full of Suharto's people."

The anti-Suharto protesters outside the court came from three groups: the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Union, the Forum to Fight for the Supremacy of the Law, and the Students and People Love Reform Forum.

"This trial is staged," Ria said in disgust on learning it had been postponed. "Staged" is what a small group of about 50 pro-Suharto protestors also branded the trial.

The pro-Suharto group turned up outside the gates of the ministry in a dozen vans, and distributed leaflets reading: "Reject the trial of Suharto, try the present corruptors." "The Suharto trial is staged by the political elite who are in power now, who pretend to be reformist but are in fact just greedy for power," it said. The leaflets also called for a halt to investigations into power holders from the past.

The sympathies of the thousands of onlookers peering through the iron bars which surround the spacious ministry grounds were divided towards the man who liked to be called the "father" of Indonesia's development.

"I feel sorry for him, he's sick and old," said 59-year-old Muhammed, a vegetable seller who had travelled two hours by train from his home to witness the proceedings. However Sardi, 50, had limited pity. "For his illness, I pity him, but for all the things he's done wrong, I have no pity," he said.