More students demand Tunky resignation
JAKARTA (JP): Dozens of students and newspaper vendors protested yesterday the government's inability to resolve the newsprint crisis, demanding that Minister Tunky Ariwibowo resign.
Spearheaded by the Islamic Students Association (HMI), the protesters marched to the trade ministry office, where they submitted a petition, demanding that the government act to end the crisis.
In their statement, the demonstrators said that Tunky has shown inability and lack of sincerity in handling the problem.
The paper shortage has been brewing over the past several months, causing book prices to soar and threatening publications with bankruptcy.
Previously, similar protests and demands have been staged in Yogyakarta and Central Java.
About 40 demonstrators, mostly from HMI's Depok chapter, also demanded that officials of the Indonesian Association of Pulp and Paper (APKI) be brought to court.
"APKI should account for their policy, which has triggered the paper crisis by dictating prices and even threatening to stop paper supplies," they stated.
The protesters said that the increase in paper prices is a heavy burden on students and parents, who have to buy books next month for the new academic year.
One demonstrator, Husein Heryanto, said newspaper sellers are also hard hit by the crisis. "Many students have stopped subscribing to newspapers," he said.
Many newspapers have had to increase prices from Rp 500 (US$4.49) a copy, to Rp 700 a copy. Prices of textbooks, which mostly use newsprint, have increased by at least 15 percent.
The protesters also demanded that the government bring down paper prices by 40 percent, starting from July 1, and end scrap import tariffs for all kinds of paper.
In May, the trade minister had already appealed to pulp and paper producers, Sinar Mas Group and Raja Garuda Mas, to set lower prices for paper, particularly text books.
However, he made it clear that the government would not take drastic measures because this would be counter productive to the country's investment policy.
The ministries of industry, trade and information, as well as publishers and paper producers, agreed on June 7 to propose to the ministry of finance that the import tariff on newsprint be cut to zero percent.
The students also urged an end to monopolistic and oligopolistic practices in the paper industry.
A member of the House of Representatives from the ABRI faction had said earlier that any speculators' act to amass newsprint, to be released when prices had gone up, would amount to "subversion".
Tunky has repeatedly said the newsprint supply is "adequate", but publishers have said that paper has become a rare and very expensive commodity.
Their statement also quoted a survey by the Econit research body on the paper price hikes this year.
"The increase, to almost 100 percent in almost four months, is extremely illogical. It is a contradiction that our paper, which is the cheapest on the world market, 40 percent cheaper than that of Scandinavia, is much more expensive within our own country."
The government has set a national standard price of Rp 1,700 per kilogram for newsprint but the price is only effective until June 30.
"We are giving the government two weeks to come up with concrete results, otherwise we will be back in much larger numbers," Heryanto threatened.
A four-member delegation, of the students, met for almost an hour with the director general of Chemical Industries, Sujata.
"He promised that the Ministry will give us an answer to our demand as soon as possible," Heryanto said. (anr)