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Molotov cocktails fly as Jakarta students clash

Source
Straits Times - September 23, 2000

Jakarta – A full-scale brawl, involving more than a thousand students from the Christian University of Indonesia (UKI) and the University of Bung Karno (UBK), left scores of people injured in the capital.

Kompas daily, in its Internet edition, yesterday reported witnesses as saying students pelted stones and Molotov cocktails at each other, while others fought using bamboos, samurai swords, metal plates, sledgehammers and batons.

The brawl, which took place in front of the city hospital, RSCM, started on Thursday night and ended yesterday afternoon. It was not immediately known what sparked the fighting.

One version has it that a group of students from one university, after demonstrating near the residence of former President Suharto at Jalan Cendana, gathered at one street and demanded money from passing motorists. Several students from another university, who saw what was happening, tried to stop them – only to trigger a fight.

Another version has it that the clash was due to a misunderstanding when a group of students made advances towards female students of one university. A kidnap theory is also making the rounds here involving a student who has allegedly been kidnapped by students from another campus in Salemba district.

As yet, the actual reason behind the brawl could not be ascertained clearly, as the students had chosen to remain silent, said Kompas. Several students were wounded badly with the police staying aloof. The brawl ended only after academic staff from the two universities intervened.

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