People's movement unlikely to emerge, observers say

JAKARTA (JP): Two prominent political observers have expressed doubts that the successive wave of student protests across the country could develop into a mass people's movement.

"Unless the protesting students can identify or be identified as one with the people whose aspirations they claim to be voicing, I don't think it will happen," Muhammad AS Hikam of the National Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said yesterday.

Noted Moslem scholar Nurcholish Madjid also argued there would need to be a unifying force, respected by all segments of society and able to bridge various divisions, for the students' actions to wield greater influence.

Nurcholish said the "People's Power" movement in the Philippines had a respected church leader to unify the people.

The scholars spoke to The Jakarta Post at a seminar on civil society yesterday.

Although skeptical about the emergence of a mass people's movement, Nurcholish said the government could not be inactive in its efforts to solve the crisis.

"Economic reforms will be less effective unless they are also followed by political reform," he said.

Hikam advised that students should keep their protests on their campuses because of the risk of violence if they moved onto the streets.

He said it was more important for students to serve as a "moral force" for efforts on democratization.

"They have already shown to the public that they, as part of the educated members of society, care about people's sufferings in the present crisis."

Discussing the process of political change and democratization, Nurcholish said he could not predict whether these would be peaceful.

He said "empirical evidence" had shown that successful democratization of a country -- one form of political reform -- would take place in conjunction with a "crisis stage" of the power elite.

"In this case, the crisis process could occur in either a constitutional or unconstitutional way, smooth or rough, soft or hard, in peace or in bloodshed," he said.

Protests

Meanwhile, students in major cities throughout the country continued to voice their discontent yesterday.

In Bandung, West Java, more than 1,000 students of the state- run Teachers Training Institute in the city ignored the ban against street rallies and held a protest on Jl. Setiabudi.

The march caused a traffic jam stretching several kilometers.

The only violent incident occurred when several students threw stones at riot police, who erected a barricade to stop them from progressing further.

The students returned to their campus after about 45 minutes .

In Semarang, Central Java, about 6,000 students held a free- speech forum at the Diponegoro University.

United Development Party (PPP) official, Moedrick Sangidoe, and the university's senior professor, Soehardjo SS, were among the participants.

Under watchful supervision from hundreds of security officers outside the campus, both speakers called on the students to keep voicing the people's aspirations through their protests.

They blamed the government for the state of the country and lamented the failure of the House of Representatives to articulate the suffering of the people.

In Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, at least four senior professors of Hasanuddin University joined more than 1,000 students in a similar protest.

After listening to speeches on their campus, the students boarded trucks and protested in front of the provincial legislature office.

No violence was reported.

Separately around 700 students of the Indonesian Muhammadiyah University (UMI) in Ujungpandang also staged a protest. The students were accompanied by Rector Masyur Ramly and several lecturers.

More people joined in later in the afternoon when some 70 more students from the Ujungpandang Teachers Training Institute came into UMI's campus and joined in the chorus of jeers.

In Yogyakarta, about 100 students from the School of Social and Political Science of Gadjah Mada University circled their campus bearing a coffin enscribed with the words "The People's Economy".

An assistant rector of the university joined in the protest. (23/30/37/43/har/aan)