25,000 students rally for reform

JAKARTA (JP): About 25,000 students held noisy but largely peaceful demonstrations demanding reform and clean governance over the past two days in Jakarta, Surabaya, Yogyakarta and other cities in Java.

Some 10,000 Moslem youths assembled after Friday prayers at the Al Azhar Grand Mosque in South Jakarta. Braving the rain and amid shouts of Allahu Akbar (God is Great), the youths spent two hours listening to fiery speeches delivered by student leaders from various universities.

"The government must take responsibility for the crisis and ask for the people's forgiveness," a student leader shouted from the podium.

"We not only want change, but improvement. Change may not always be improvement, while improvement certainly means change," another speaker said.

Fachri Hamzah, chairman of the Association of Indonesian Moslem Students (KAMMI) who organized the protest, called on students, legislators and the general public to be critical and not to waver in demands for an end to the corruption, collusion and nepotism that pervades in the Indonesian government.

"We call on the people not to believe everything said by the government and to remain critical," he said. The crowd waved banners calling for "peaceful reform" and for the military to "protect the people, not nepotism" in response.

"We are not the enemy and we do not want to clash with ABRI (the Armed Forces)," he said. The rally concluded peacefully.

Also in Jakarta, demonstrations took place on Thursday at the Teachers Training Institute and Jakarta University campus, both in East Jakarta.

In Yogyakarta, thousands of members and supporters of Muhammadiyah Moslem organization held a tabligh akbar (grand prayer gathering) and listened to their chairman, Amien Rais, speak on the need for reform. Amien said that Indonesians should not be proud about having to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance.

The bailout package organized by the IMF made Indonesia "surrender its soul," Amien said.

Also in Yogyakarta, 10,000 students assembled at Gadjah Mada University on Thursday and demanded political and economic reform. The demonstration was organized by KAMMI. Unlike previous demonstrations marred by clashes with security forces which left dozens of people injured, Thursday's demonstration concluded peacefully.

In Depok, West Java, some 5,000 students from University of Indonesia and other colleges gathered, read poems and sang songs critical of the government.

The same group of students then attended a discussion on social change which featured former ministers Emil Salim and Siswono Yudohusodo.

In Bandung, West Java, thousands of students held demonstrations on Thursday at Bandung Institute of Technology, the Teachers Training Institute and Bandung Islamic University. Students from the technology institute tried to leave their campus, but were prevented from doing so by hundreds of security personnel and a number of armored vehicles.

In Semarang and Surakarta in Central Java, students from a number of universities came together on Thursday and shouted demands for economic, political and legal reform. No clashes were reported.

In Surabaya, the capital of East Java, fifteen staff lecturers from the state-run Airlangga University protested at the security forces' harsh treatment of demonstrating students and threatened to go on strike if the violence continued.

One of the lecturers, Daniel Sparingga, made the promise when he spoke before some 500 demonstrating students at the Airlangga campus on Thursday.

"Security personnel used batons, 'yellow liquid' and stones to frighten the students. We cannot tolerate that any longer," Daniel said, adding that he and his colleagues did not agree with the ban placed by Minister of Education and Culture Wiranto Arismunandar on student involvement in practical political activities.

A demonstration involving a further 200 Surabaya students took place at Dr. Sutomo University. Students displayed their anger at injuries inflicted on 18 protesters during an earlier demonstration by beating up a plain-clothes police officer. (swe/23/nur/har/43)