Officer killed in MPR showdown

JAKARTA (JP): Tens of thousands of students defied a heavy downpour and a massive security cordon to march toward the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) building on Thursday to press their demand for speedy political reform.

One police officer died in various clashes that also left at least three students with gunshot wounds and more than 120 others injured.

Few of the students made it to the MPR building.

Most of the columns of protesters were stopped well before they reached their destination by riot police and soldiers.

Clashes were inevitable.

They occurred at the toll road above the Slipi intersection in West Jakarta and at the Semanggi cloverleaf in Central Jakarta, when the heavily armed troops -- equipped with guns, water canon vehicles, horses and batons -- attempted to disperse the crowd.

At Slipi, the clash was recorded at about 6:30 p.m. shortly after the students refused to reply to security officers' requests to disperse peacefully.

With two water canon vehicles and two trucks fronted with barbed-wire grilles in the front line to drive the students away, the troops fired gas canisters at the demonstrators and then beat them.

Only two shots were heard during the clash. Several buses, minibuses and cars believed to have been used by the protesters to reach the site were left behind by the students who scattered in panic.

According to the head of the Jakarta Police On-the-Alert unit, Col. Arthur Damanik, the dead officer from the police's elite Mobile Brigade was beaten by the protesters during the Slipi incident.

He, however, refused to give details, saying that the body had been sent to the police-owned Kramatdjati hospital in East Jakarta for a postmortem examination.

The Semanggi incident followed several minutes later.

It began when the students tried to push through the Army lines in a car. The soldiers stopped the vehicle and smashed all the windows. This prompted the students to throw stones at the security forces and attack them with the wooden flagpoles they were carrying.

The security forces then opened fire.

About two hours later the students hastily retreated after a group of hundreds of pro-session security volunteers arrived at the scene.

Hospital sources said the students who suffered gunshot wounds were Dedi Aidil of the Bogor Agriculture Institute, and Zulhaidir and Budi Chairullah, both from Gunadarma University in Jakarta.

Medical staff said they were shot in the chest, hands and legs. The type of the bullets remains unknown.

Some 50 wounded students were treated at the Pelni hospital in Tanah Abang, 16 at UKI hospital in Cawang, 15 at Cipto Mangunkusumo, five at Sumber Waras hospital in Grogol, 14 at Patria Ika hospital in Slipi and 29 at the Sonjaya Clinic in Palmerah.

Some of the wounded students were still in critical condition.

Most of the students suffered light wounds on their heads and legs. A few of the injured students were taken home by their relatives.

The Jakarta Police spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Aritonang, when contacted last night, refused to comment on the clashes. "We're still waiting for the final results," he told The Jakarta Post.

The tens of thousands of demonstrators, who approached the MPR complex from various directions after long marches round the city, included a huge number of members of the public. The latter joined the sea of people who occupied almost all major streets heading to the venue of the Special Session at the Assembly building on Jl. Gatot Subroto in South Jakarta.

It is thought Thursday's clashes were triggered by a clash the previous day between soldiers and students and journalists in Jl. Iman Bonjol, Central Jakarta. Nine soldiers, three journalists and two students were injured in the incident.

As of late last night, thousands of protesters were still at Atmajaya University near the Semanggi cloverleaf and the LIPI building on Jl. Gatot Subroto.

It is still unclear whether the students were planning to break through the blockade of troops from all four branches of the Armed Forces.

As was the case in previous days, the demonstrators' demands were: reject the special session, revoke the Armed Forces (ABRI) dual function and prosecute former president Soeharto.

The students came from dozens of universities in Jakarta and West Java, such as Bogor and Bandung.

They were grouped in the City Forum (Forkot), Communication Forum of Greater Jakarta Student Senates (FKSMJ), Indonesian Moslem Students Association (HMI), Workers Committee for Reforms Action (Kobar), Committee of Students and People for Democracy (Komrad), Students Action Front for Reform and Democracy (Famred), Collective Forum (Forbes), Indonesian Nationalists Student Movement (GMNI), Pro-Megawati Youth Committee, Big Family of the University of Indonesia (KBUI), and the Students Family of Bandung's Institute of Technology.

Police in Jakarta's environs, such as Bogor, were assigned to examine suspicious buses which might have been carrying students to join their colleagues in the capital.

"We only stopped vehicles that we really believed to be carrying potential protesters," Bogor Police chief Col. Hary Setiabudhi said.

The clashes provoked some pro-government Islamic groups into threatening to unleash their own supporters to confront the students, Antara reported.

The Ulama Communication Forum condemned the students and accused them of trying to overthrow the government "by revolutionary means", the news agency said.

Forum chairman Abdul Rasyid Abdullah Syafi'ie called on all clerics, religious teachers and public figures to prepare their supporters at any time they were needed to secure the MPR meeting.

Amien Rais, a reformist leader and chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), however, attacked the use of religious attributes by those who opposed the students.

"We should condemn them. But we should condemn even harder those who are behind the mobilization of people in the name of religion," said Amien, a long-time leader of the Muhammadiyah Islamic organization.

Amien appealed to protesting students to control their emotions, saying that certain parties might be using the protests as part of a bigger scenario to seize power.

He said the parties bent on grabbing power were stirring up the conflicts to create chaos. "I have my suspicions, but I won't name who they are." (team)