Police beat students for flag-burning

JAKARTA (JP): Riot police beat nine university students after they burned the flags of the ruling Golkar Party and the United States of America and tried to enter the Merdeka Palace compound on Monday.

The youths, who identified themselves as members of Mercu Buana University Students Action Union (KAM-UMB), were taken to police headquarters.

The police were yet to issue a statement on the incident as of Monday afternoon.

"With the flag burning, we declare war on the New Order government and with new imperialists' undertakings in Indonesia by industrial countries such as the U.S.," the students said in a statement released on Monday.

Accusing the government and the U.S. of causing bankruptcy to Indonesia, the students branded the government a corrupt administration that deprived the people of their rights.

They also denounced Washington as taking advantage of the concept of globalization to dominate the Indonesian market.

The clash occurred at about 2 p.m. when a bus carrying the nine students stopped at a traffic light opposite the presidential palace. The students burned the flags inside the bus before alighting from the vehicle and rushing toward the palace.

The bus driver quickly extinguished the fire with water he brought for the radiator.

"It never occurred to me that the students would burn the flags inside my bus, and luckily I saw the fire." He said the students hired the bus from Blok M Bus Terminal in South Jakarta.

Troops, who have been put on alert around the palace, arrested the students and forced them into a van to take them to the headquarters in South Jakarta. (04)