Susan Sim, Jakarta – More than a third of Indonesia's 36-member Cabinet turned up for the marathon talks, but a third of their main dialogue partners – the student leaders who have been organising increasingly vociferous campus protests – declined to come.

Yet, at the end of yesterday's seven-hour session, organiser ABRI – Indonesia's powerful military – declared itself satisfied with the mutual airing of views.

"Through dialogue, we develop vision, perception and various thoughts on national problems," it said.

ABRI was also not worried about the boycott led by student leaders from the campus hotbeds in Yogyakarta, Solo, Bandung and Jakarta, who have called for a session with President Suharto. Their demands for radical political changes did not reflect the views of the majority of students, nor were they speaking on behalf of the whole nation, ABRI chief of social-political affairs, Lieutenant-General Susilo Bambang Yudoyono, told The Straits Times. "But the key is that we have to listen, to understand their real aspirations and real demands, not the manipulated ones...not just the rhetoric, the posturing or the screaming."

ABRI also wanted to prevent the student protests, now almost into their third month, from escalating into violence, he said.

"We are really concerned about the riots, any kind of law-breaking by the students," he added.

Several clashes between troops and students have already occurred, largely in the campus towns, like Solo, where troops used tear gas to force stone-throwing students off the streets, the Antara national news agency reported yesterday.

About 100 students from the ABRI-affiliated Sebelas Maret University and 14 soldiers suffered minor injuries.

Their counterparts from 39 other universities and youth organisations across the nation decided instead to come to an exhibition hall in Jakarta's fairground to raise their demands directly with the 14 ministers and hear their explanations.

Jostling for airtime in three lively sessions, they and other critics attacked the government on all fronts – the handling of the economic crisis, the "suffocating" political laws, moral decay, government arrogance, corruption and nepotism. One of their targets, Social Affairs Minister Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, Mr Suharto's eldest daughter, acknowledged that she had seen student posters telling her family to "go to hell".

It is not easy to change things, she told the 250 participants. Armed Forces Commander and Defence Minister Wiranto stressed that the government was interested in finding ways out of its crisis. But even before the session ended, one question was already being asked: What next?