Gadjah Mada students wary of accusations<\/p>\n
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Students at Gadjah Mada University, recently
\nnamed as a hotbed of student organizations with leftist political
\nleanings, are gripped with fear following the arrests of
\ncolleagues here and in other cities.<\/p>\n
\"We are really scared,\" said law school student Nasrullah, who
\nis also president of the student senate body. \"The authorities
\nare arresting and tailing not only activists of organizations
\nthat are already branded as leftist, such as PRD and SMID, but
\nany kind of student activists.\"<\/p>\n
Nasrullah was referring to the Democratic People's Party and
\nIndonesian Students' Solidarity for Democracy respectively -- two
\nstudent organizations accused of being \"synonymous\" with the
\noutlawed Indonesian Communist Party and of masterminding
\nprotests, including the massive rioting in Jakarta on July 27.<\/p>\n
Five students were arrested in Yogyakarta on Thursday in
\nconnection with their alleged links to 'leftist' organizations.
\nMany others claim the police are tailing them.<\/p>\n
\"Many students are getting paranoid. They keep looking over
\ntheir shoulder,\" another student, Israr Ardiansjah, said.<\/p>\n
\"I'm not even sure that the five student activists arrested
\nlast Thursday in connection with the rioting in Jakarta were PRD
\nactivists,\" said another. \"I fear for their safety.\"<\/p>\n
Some of the students branded as \"leftist\" were actually
\nMoslems who say the obligatory prayer five times a day and are
\nalso members of Islamic student organizations, the student
\npointed out.<\/p>\n
Following the rioting and subsequent minor demonstrations by
\nsupporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri, ousted as chief of the
\nIndonesian Democratic Party (PDI) by government-backed Soerjadi,
\nthe authorities have not accused her of being behind the
\nupheaval. Instead, they said that Megawati was manipulated by
\npeople intent on bringing about a communist insurgency and blamed
\nthe riots on PRD whose activists have since gone underground.<\/p>\n
Armed Forces Chief of Sociopolitical Affairs Lt. Gen. Syarwan
\nHamid last week told a group of senior journalists and editors
\nthat PRD was actually not strong enough to revolt. At Gadjah Mada
\nUniversity, for instance, it has only some 100 followers, while
\nat Diponegoro University in Semarang, Central Java, it has around
\n25 members.<\/p>\n
Albeit small, the group is already \"thorns in the flesh\" and
\nshould be eliminated, Syarwan said.<\/p>\n
Rizal Yaya, a former president of the student body, said that
\nsome of the accusations directed against student activists were
\n\"out of proportion\".<\/p>\n
\"Most of the students here would not have agreed to join
\norganizations which have communist leanings,\" Yaya said. He
\nadmitted however that there are small groups of students who,
\nupon learning about Leninism or Marxism, have become verbally
\nleftist.<\/p>\n
\"In reality, however, those groups were usually isolated. Not
\nmany of the other students like to have anything to do with
\nthem,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Heni Yulianto, chairman of the student executive body,
\ndeplored the way the authorities seemed to have made arbitrary
\ngeneralizations about student activities. If one group is accused
\nof adhering to communism, then other groups which come into
\ncontact with the first group usually face similar accusations, he
\npointed out.<\/p>\n
\"Students are always turned into an arena for so many interest
\ngroups, and it's always difficult for us to choose whether to
\njoin or reject certain groups,\" he said.<\/p>\n
On Saturday the students visited political observer Amien
\nRais, one of their lecturers, airing their fears and grievances.
\nAmien, who is also chairman of the 28-million strong Muhammadiyah
\nMoslem organization, reminded the students that the danger of
\ncommunism is real and that ideologies don't just die. Instead,
\n\"it has feet to spread and proliferate\".<\/p>\n
However, he conceded, there's a need for everybody to look
\nbeyond the current political situation which has been marred by
\nunrest and tension, and examine the factors that caused the
\ntrouble.<\/p>\n
\"We need to differentiate between the danger of communism,
\nwhich we should watch out for, and the fact that the objective
\nsocial, economic and political condition is already potentially
\nexplosive,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"The ongoing political conflicts are merely symptoms of an
\naccumulation of mistakes that occurred over the past decades,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
\"There are groups of vested political interests fighting one
\nanother, there's a yawning social gap...We need some saviors,
\nnamely people from all groups, including the Armed Forces and the
\nbureaucracy, who are still clean, unpolluted and uncorrupt, to
\nsee us safely through the current situation.\" (swe)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/gadjah-mada-students-wary-of-accusations-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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