Jakarta – A long-time bastion of support for President Suharto turned on him Wednesday as hundreds of current and former students at the University of Indonesia, Jakarta, condemned the leadership they helped to install in 1966

The protesters rallied peacefully at the University's central campus... several were wearing traditional yellow jackets and drapped a funeral shroud over a sign welcoming the arrive of Suharto's "New Order" rule.

"The irony is that even though the socio-economic turmoil has been going on for several months and has turned into the greatest downturn for the New Order, it appears that there are no firm, systematic and consistent efforts to overcome it effectively", the protesters said in a statement.

It was the bigger demonstration in Jakarta over the devastating economic crisis. Some 100 troops and at least 70 plain clothes military intelligence agents were deployed but no violence was reported, witnesses said.

"What we have now really cannot be supported," University of Indonesia's alumni chairman Hariadi Darmawan told reporters. Darmawan is a former brigadier general and now foresty ministry inspector general, whose daughter is married to Vice-President Try Sutrisno's son. [That makes him a top bureaucrat!]

The protesters said flawed policies had led Indonesia to the economic crisis and were responsible for the consequences, including rioting that has rocked 25 cities and towns in recent weeks. "The practices of power abuse, collusion, corruption manipultation... are now seen as normal and not shameful any longer," the statement said..

The statement, issued on behalf of the university's academic community also called on the powerful armed forces to "return to their role as real guardian of the state". It also urged civil servants to "return and practise their real mission as servants of the state and society, siding with the entire people and not only certain groups."

"We are here for a moral action," said senior university economics professor Sri Edi Swasono, senior official of the national development planning board.

The authorities have broken up recent demonstrations but are tolerating protests on campues.

Meanwhile according to AP, Hariyadi said: "There's no rule of law among the people who benefit." Chanting and raising their fists, protesters called for the ouster of President Suharto.

Protesters sprayed black paind on a billboard at the university declaring it a New Order campus and hung a white sheet over a billboard nearby. A truckload of black-clad police parked near the camppus gates and police and soldiers with walkie-talkies watched from the streets but protesters did not venture on to the street.

No violence has been reported in Jakarta but troops are on alert to safeguard the electoral assembly. More military trucks cruise the streets and some units are unsing hotels as headquarters.

Hundreds of students in Yogyakarta, Central Java marched in protest against Suharto. "Bring down Suharto," read a banner in a peaceful protest at the prestigious Gadjah Mada university. Six philosophy students entered the third day of a hunger strike.