Khairul Ihwan/GB, Medan – After a fellow student was slashed yesterday, Monday, 2,000 students of the Medan State University (UniMed) today attacked the local offices of the notorious 'hired hands' of the New Order regime- Pemuda Pancasila.
The offices, located on Jl Willem Iskandar, Sidorejo, Percut Sei Tuan municipality, were burnt to the ground by the angry students when they converged at 9am local time Tuesday.
Hendra Putra, a student of the Faculty of Physical Education at UniMed, was allegedly slashed by a member of Pemuda Pancasila and remains in a coma in the Martmondi Hospital in Medan.
The offices are located only 500 meters from the campus and the situation remains tense. 60 police offices have been deployed to the area to avoid further confrontation between the students and Pemuda Pancasila.
At the site, students were seen carrying spears, machetes and wood and iron batons. They declared their intention to burn the offices of other organisations they say intimidate students.
In negotiations with the Deputy Head of the Greater Medan Police, Commissioner Badroddin Haiti, the students said the slashing incident was the result of the police's continual failure to act on complaints of intimidation made by students at the campus. They have demanded the local police chief for the Percut Sei Tuan municipality be fired immediately.
Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province, is renowned throughout Indonesia for the diversity of its inhabitants who originate from numerous local ethnic groups and coexist with immigrant Malays as well as Chinese and Arabs. It is also famous for its criminal networks.
Pemuda Pancasila throughout the 1990s was notorious as the 'long arm' of the New Order regime and has been linked to numerous cases of criminality in Medan and throughout Indonesia. It's ties to the Golkar Party which dominated Indonesian politics under the New Order has meant that the group seemingly acts with impunity.
The tide may be changing, however. Golkar offices in East Java are being attacked by mobs who reject the party's attempts to oust President Abdurrahman Wahid. Spontaneous attacks on the institutions of the old regime are apparently on the rise across Indonesia as the police and state fail to deal with the entrenched power groups.