Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesians rallied on Wednesday, the 33rd anniversary of an attempted communist coup, warning that communism was still alive and responsible for riots and looting plaguing the country.
They echoed recent warnings from the military that communists, frequently used as bogey-men during the Suharto regime, could be stirring the growing unrest that has come with Indonesia's worst economic crisis in more than 30 years.
"Now communism secretly comes inside us. Even Islamic students have been infiltrated and pressured by their seniors in school to hold demonstrations," Husni Thamrin, a leader of the Islamic Forum for Justice and the Constitution told a crowd of several thousand outside Jakarta's largest mosque.
The forum is a loose organisation of about 80 small Islamic groups. The rally was held to mark the September 30, 1965, anniversary of an alleged coup attempt by the Indonesian communist party – then the third largest in the world.
The attempt was crushed by then general Suharto who subsequently rose to president, a position he held until May this year when he was forced to step down amid growing social and economic chaos.
In a statement, to be presented later to parliament, the group supported the transfer of power in May from then President Suharto to his Vice-President B.J. Habibie. It also rejected allegations of mass rapes during rioting that ravaged Jakarta in May. "That issue very much discredits Indonesian Moslems. There is no factual and authentic evidence yet," it said.
Human rights groups say 168 women were victims of systematic rape during the riots, aimed primarily at ethnic Chinese, the country's most economically successful minority and frequently the target of violence. The majority of ethnic Chinese are Christians in a country where about 80 percent of the 200 million population is Moslem – the world's largest Moslem population.
Another estimated 3,000 people protested outside the local parliament building in the north Sumatran city of Medan, backing the government's efforts to eradicate communism. "Recent demonstrations that have flared into looting and riots have been infiltrated by members of PKI (Indonesian Communist Party)," said Amran Y.S., member of an anti-communist student movement established after the 1965 coup attempt.
In 1966, the Suharto government launched a ferocious anti-communist witch-hunt, in which at least 500,000 people are estimated to have been killed. The Suharto regime, during its 32-year iron rule, frequently accused its critics of being backed by communists.
In a small demonstration in Indonesia's second city of Surabaya, about 200 left-wing protesters demanded the end of the military's dual function, which gives it a socio-political role as well as defence.
[In a separate report on the same day Associatd Press quoted a rally organizer, Abdul Kadir, as saying "We want to show the public that we have to be careful about the latent danger of communism. Today's situation is similar to the situation in the 1960s". The report said that troops and police were deployed across the capital amid rumors of anti-government protests - James Balowski.]