Germany regrets demonstration
Germany regrets demonstration
JAKARTA (JP): The authorities of Sachsen (Saxony), embarrassed by a hostile demonstration against President Soeharto during his visit to Dresden, expressed on Wednesday their regret over the incident.
The apology was personally extended by Kurt Biedenkopf, the Minister President of Sachsen, during a dinner that he hosted for Soeharto in Dresden on Wednesday evening.
Biedenkopf apologized and said that such an incident would prompt a review of the local laws governing public demonstrations, Indonesian Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono said.
Germany's ambassador to Jakarta, Heinrich Seeman, also expressed his regret over the incident, said Moerdiono, who is accompanying the President on his current overseas tour.
Soeharto, who was on his final leg of a six-day visit to Germany, was greeted with a riotous demonstration as he toured the Zwinger museum on Wednesday.
About 100 raucous demonstrators crowded the majestic surroundings of the museum, throwing anti-Indonesian pamphlets and shouting profanities and allegations of human rights abuses.
Local security officers initially seemed unprepared, apparently not anticipating such a protest, and allowed the demonstrators to close enough to obstruct the entry of President and Mrs. Tien Soeharto into the museum.
Despite the situation, Soeharto maintained his calm and as he left the building, under tight security, he smiled and waved to the hostile crowd.
Later on, ambassador Seeman told Indonesian reporters that he was ashamed at the way the demonstrators acted.
Demonstrations are a normal occurrence in democracy, he said, but what happened there was not a demonstration but brutality.
Taking no chances, policemen ran alongside the president's limousine as it made its way back to the hotel.
Wednesday's incident, according to some suggestions, may have been instigated by a radical German rights group called Wolf Pelz, or Wolf Pelt.
Some press reports have also suggested that two of the East Timorese youths that occupied the United States embassy in Jakarta last November, and who eventually found asylum in Portugal, were party to the demonstration.
According to Moerdiono, despite the relentless vocal protests outside, Soeharto insisted on attending the Biedenkopfs' dinner reception at the Hilton hotel later that evening. "The president decided to attend the reception because to cancel it would have been submitting to the demonstrators' plans," he said.
During the dinner, Soeharto told his host to disregard the incident. "I can understand what happened and it has past. Let what has already passed be, because we have to look to the future," he said.
Moerdiono further asserted that the demonstrations would not overshadow the president's successful trip to Germany, which included last Monday's opening of the Indonesian pavilion at the 1995 Hannover Fair.
The president's visit to Germany has been marred by a string of protests down to the day of his arrival when Soeharto was met by a hundred demonstrators.
Soeharto yesterday was scheduled to fly from Dresden to Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, for the second leg of his four-nation tour. Today he is scheduled to engage in talks with President Nursultan Nasarbayev.
His next two stops will be in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Indonesian officials said his visit to the Central Asian countries is primarily to push Indonesian exports in the former Soviet republics.
"Indonesia represents a lot for us because of the size of the population, its economic development and also because it currently presides over the Non-Aligned Movement," Dulat Kuanyshev, press secretary to President Nasarbayev told AFP. (mds)