Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Student activists, angered by a Jakarta district court's rejection of former President Suharto's corruption charges, have vowed to step up pressure to bring him back to court with more street rallies next week.
But their movement may not carry the weight as it did two years ago, when their activism, joined by professionals and common people, helped pressure the former leader to step down.
Despite the violent showdown with the police following Thursday's verdict, most people in Jakarta were indifferent, reckoning the trial had been a farce to begin with.
Mr Suharto, who never attended the trial, was freed of all charges after a court-appointed medical team declared the 79-year-old physically and mentally unfit to stand trial. The prosecutors said they would appeal against the decision.
Mr Irfan, one of the leaders of the militant City Forum (Forkot), said his student group would gather 2,000 student protesters either on Monday or Tuesday. Armed with wooden sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails, they will picket the Cendana Street area in central Jakarta, where the Suharto family lives.
They will not rule out hostile encounters with the police and other forms of violence, including setting up road blocks and burning vehicles belonging to the military or the police.
The planned rally next week coincided with Pancasila Day on October 1 when some 35 years ago as a young officer Mr Suharto led the crackdown on an attempted coup by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members before taking over the presidency from Mr Sukarno.
The abortive coup led to a nation-wide campaign against PKI members, and the killings of many suspected communist sympathisers. "October 1 is the milestone of Mr Suharto's immense power, when he started eliminating his political enemies," Mr Irfan said.
Although the student movement appeared to have fizzled out since the early days of the reform movement in 1998, the court's decision revived the students' cause.
Having lost financial and moral support from the public, which have grown weary of protesters clogging the traffic, the student leaders now hope they could again mobilise "non-student elements".
They aim to encourage brokers at the Jakarta Stock Exchange to threaten a strike if Mr Suharto was not brought to court, as they did last year to stop then President B.J. Habibie from running in the presidential election. But, judging from other activists' cool reactions, this expectation may be too farfetched.
Even the normally-feisty former political prisoner Budiman Sudjatmiko seemed more tolerant on the issue, saying his Democratic People's Party, which four years ago was labelled a communist by the Suharto regime, had no plans to stage street protests.