Telly Nathalia, Jakarta – Indonesian anti-riot police briefly clashed with about 100 demonstrators on Saturday as they called for former Indonesian president Suharto to be brought to justice.
Students and human rights activists gathered outside the Jakarta hospital where the 86-year-old Suharto is being treated, but police barred them from entering, and were later joined by anti-riot police wearing shields and helmets.
A Reuters reporter saw police briefly hitting demonstrators. One student was arrested.
The former strongman, who is critically ill in hospital, ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for 32 years and has never been brought to trial for human rights abuses that occurred while he was in power.
Attempts by the state to recover money from Suharto and his family are taking years to wend their way through the court system.
The protesters carried banners with the slogans "Stop Exploiting Suharto's Condition", "Treat Suharto as a regular citizen", "Bring Suharto and his cronies to court" and "Confiscate the wealth of Suharto and his cronies".
With the former general so ill, a debate has emerged over whether to push ahead with legal action against him for graft.
After Suharto quit office in 1998 amid mass protests, he was charged with embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds. Authorities later dropped the criminal case due to his poor health, although he faces a civil case related to the use of state funds by his charities. Suharto and his family deny any wrongdoing.
Recovering
Earlier in the day, doctors said that Suharto's health had improved and he could eventually recover enough to go home. The former general has been in hospital for more than two weeks and was put on a ventilator after he suffered multiple organ failure.
The medical team treating Suharto at Jakarta's Pertamina hospital said in a statement he was still on a ventilator, but his heart and lung functions had improved and there were fewer signs of systemic infection. "Yes, we are optimistic," Mardjo Soebiandono, the head of the medical team, told reporters after being asked about Suharto's progress.
Asked whether Suharto might recover enough to be treated at home, Soebiandono told a news conference: "God willing, we hope so." He said doctors aimed to remove the ventilator, something that was initially tried earlier in the week.
"We are still putting maximum effort to end the use of instruments step by step, because we are dealing with an old man who has been using the devices for quite some time."
Soebiandono said Suharto remained sedated and doctors would conduct a test to examine the strength of his lung muscles later. Another doctor, Harryanto Reksodiputro, said only a small amount of fluid remained in the lungs and signs of blood poisoning had fallen.
The vast country of 226 million people has been gripped by the swings in Suharto's health in recent weeks, and he remains a polarising figure.
He came to power after crushing what was official described as a communist coup in 1965. His long rule was marked by rapid economic growth and political stability, as well as by massacres, human rights abuses and endemic corruption.
Suharto was hospitalised on Jan. 4 suffering from anaemia and low blood pressure due to heart, lung and kidney problems. The head of his medical team said last weekend he had only a 50:50 chance of survival.
But doctors say they have been having success fending off potentially fatal pneumonia and blood poisoning.
[Additional reporting by Adhityani Arga and Andreas Ismar; Writing by Ed Davies and Sara Webb; Editing by Bill Tarrant.]