Another demonstration near House building
Another demonstration near House building
JAKARTA (JP): Hundreds of students staged a rally near the
toll gate on Jl. Gatot Subroto close to the Semanggi cloverleaf
in Central Jakarta on Wednesday, demanding the establishment of a
national reconciliation council by the House of Representatives.
The students, who came from nine Greater Jakarta universities
and who are grouped in the Indonesian Islamic Students Forum
(Formasi Indonesia), initially planned to march to the House
building to convey their demand.
However they were blocked by traffic police, thereby causing
heavy traffic jams on nearby roads for at least three hours.
Toll road lanes heading west were closed off from the front of
the police headquarters, forcing vehicles to exit and head down
Jl. Surdirman. The resulting congestion left motorists grumbling.
The path of the marching students was later blocked by
soldiers at a nearby intersection.
"We planned to meet the House members, but the police insisted
that we stop here and only send 10 people to the building," one
student said.
After stiff negotiation between students and the military, the
students were given 15 minutes to get under the flyover and stay
there.
Students, wearing white ribbons around their heads, chanted
"one command, one fight" and unfurled posters which read "Reform
is polluted, reconcile", "Establish a reconciliation council
immediately", "We want to meet Gus Dur, Megawati Soekarnoputri,
Amien Rais and Akbar Tandjung".
The police then told the students they would count to 10 and
then they had to disperse, but the student jumped the fence
between the road and the toll road before the police had finished
counting.
The police asked the students to get off the toll road as they
feared they would make the traffic worse.
The students, however, strongly denied that they were the
cause of traffic congestion whenever they held a protest.
"It's not us who cause traffic jams. We're forced to be here.
If only the police would allow us to proceed to the legislature
building, then we wouldn't be in the middle of the toll road like
this," Armen, one of the students, said.
After reading their demand and singing patriotic songs, the
students dispersed peacefully under the watchful eyes of both the
police and soldiers. (emf)