Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesian students in the capital and other cities in Java and Sumatra Tuesday marked the 54th Indonesian Armed Forces Day with mass protests demanding the military return to barracks, witnesses and reports said.
In Jakarta, at least 400 students of the City Forum marched down a main avenue towards the parliament where the national assembly was convening, to demand the military get out of politics.
The protesters, marching behind a huge banner that included a demand to "reject the socio-political role of ABRI (the Indonesian armed forces)," were stopped by a strong cordon of police and soldiers at an underpass some 200 meters from the gate to the parliament.
Another 150 students massed at a busy roundabout in front of a posh hotel where most newly-elected members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) are staying. "Reject the military in government," read one banner.
In the university town of Bandung, in West Java, thousands of students paraded an effigy of Indonesian Armed Forces Chief General Wiranto at the campus of the state Bandung Institute of Technology before marching off into downtown Bandung with a brief stop at the provincial parliament.
The students, from at least three main universities and several student groups, who also demanded the scrapping of the military's role in politics, burned the effigy as they arrived in city square, the Detik.com online news service said.
Some 2,000 students rallied peacefully in the streets of the city of Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, chanting slogans and brandishing anti-military posters.
The protestors stopped at the provicial parliament and held a free speech forum there for almost three hours before heading to the local military headquarters some five kilometres away.
In Semarang, some 300 students from the Indonesian Students Network held a demonstration at the Central Java military headquarters to demand the scrapping of the military's role in politics and the disbanding of military command posts from the village up to the provincial level.
In nearby Salatiga, some 100 students from three local universities held a similar protest at the local military headquarters.
Some 150 students from several universities attempted to approach the East Java military headquarters in Surabaya but were prevented by a thick cordon of mass control troops. There was not incident and the students dispersed after holding a free speech forum there for about 40 minutes.