APSN Banner

Students protest demanding ouster of Suharto

Source
Associated Press - March 4, 1998

Christopher Torchia, Jakarta – Thousands of banner-waving university students demanded President Suharto's ouster Wednesday – the largest display of anger yet over the economic crisis that has Indonesia in an upheaval.

The protests came as the United States and other foreign lenders stepped up the pressure on Suharto to carry out reforms they consider crucial to rescuing the economy – reforms that could undercut much of Suharto's power and wealth.

"Hang Suharto!" shouted protesters in the Java island city of Yogyakarta, circling their campus on scooters under the scrutiny of hundreds of police and plainclothes officers.

Students also rallied in several other cities on Java as well as on Sulawesi, another of Indonesia's larger islands.

Five people have been killed in riots this year over rising food costs, but Wednesday's rallies were peaceful. Confined to campuses, they posed little threat to Suharto, who has resisted calls to overhaul the government he began shaping in the 1960s.

Even as the students protested, delegates to a special assembly were preparing to extend Suharto's 32-year rule. Already Asia's longest-serving leader, the 76-year-old president is almost certain to get a seventh five-year term next week.

However, Suharto is under growing international pressure to carry out economic reforms in exchange for $43 billion bailout by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF has already handed over $3 billion, but still has not decided whether to grant the second $3 billion installment, due March 15.

The United States, which exerts virtual veto power over the IMF, says Suharto is not moving fast enough on reforms that would remove business perks he, his family and their associates have long enjoyed.

Indonesia says many of the measures, including the slashing of subsidies, are too strict and could provoke more social unrest.

But with the deadline nearing, Suharto said Wednesday that he had dismantled a string of monopolies in line with the IMF requirements. In a meeting of top economic advisers, he said the government has stripped the state agency Bulog of all trade controls except for a rice monopoly. Presidential spokesman Murdiono, who attended the meeting, quoted Suharto's remarks on reform.

Indonesia's worst economic turmoil in three decades began when the currency, the rupiah, plunged in value last year, pushing up prices and unemployment in the nation of 202 million. Protesters said Suharto is to blame.

"Suharto is the mastermind of the crisis," said Pedro Viera, a student at the prestigious Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, 310 miles east of Jakarta.

The Yogyakarta students also appealed for the government to take action against ethnic violence. Chinese merchants, a minority who dominate commerce in Indonesia, have been targeted in the riots over soaring food prices.

Human rights groups accuse the government of doing little to protect the Chinese, although Suharto warned against scapegoating in a speech last weekend.

In Surabaya, another Java city, seven university students entered the second day of a hunger strike.

Police blocked a small group of protesters from leaving the campus at a state university in Bandung, near Jakarta. In the capital, students also marched at an Islamic university.

Several thousand people demonstrated at a teaching institute in Ujungpandang on Sulawesi island, northeast of the capital.

In Jakarta, three women who had been arrested in an anti-government protest went on trial Wednesday. More than 100 people crowded a district court for a hearing in the case of Gadis Arivia and Karlina Leksono, both feminist editors and philosophy lecturers, and Wularsih, a housewife.

They were arrested Feb. 23 after waving posters on a main plaza to protest the government's management of the economy. The women face one week in jail if convicted.

Authorities have imposed a ban on political rallies in Jakarta, hoping to keep the peace during the March 1-11 assembly expected to renominate Suharto. The 1,000-member People's Consultative Assembly is dominated by Suharto supporters.

Country