Rallies continue against utility price hikes
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Rallies against price hikes continued across the country on Saturday, with new demands that Indonesia stop economic reforms sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Some 5,000 members of Hizbut Tahrir (Party of Liberation) staged a peaceful rally in front of the legislature building in the country's second largest city, Surabaya in East Java, and later paraded through the city.
They criticized the IMF's support for the price hikes as part of its US$4.8 billion economic recovery program for Indonesia, one of the nations hardest hit by the 1997-1998 regional financial crisis.
"The people suffer, the IMF laughs," read a poster. "The IMF goes, the people are happy," read another.
Hizbut Tahrir spokesman M. Sya'roni said similar rallies would be held in Malang, East Java, and Makassar, South Sulawesi, next week.
"We want to remind the government that the decision to raise the utility prices hurts the people; we do not have any intentions of toppling the President and the Vice President," Sya'roni said as quoted by Antara.
In Jakarta, dozens of students from the Association of Indonesian National Muslim Students protested in front of the Merdeka Palace, demanding that the government renegotiate with the IMF over the recent utility price hikes.
On Jan. 1 the government raised telephone and electricity rates and removed the fuel subsidy, as part of its effort to finance the country's 2003 state budget and reduce its dependence on the IMF.
The decision, however, has been strongly opposed by trade unions, students and non-governmental organizations, who say the simultaneous increases will only cause the poor more suffering.
Protests also took place in Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara, and Samarinda in East Kalimantan on Saturday.
Even in conflict-torn Maluku, students from the Indonesian Christian Students Movement (GMKI) and the Association of Muslim Students (HMI) joined hands to reject the government's decision to raise utility prices.
HMI activist Nendi said students feared the price increases would have a serious impact on people still recovering from years of conflict that has left over 5,000 people dead.
In Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, local authorities began distributing subsidized rice allocated for some 83,000 families in the province. The Jakarta administration began disbursing rice on Friday.
But students vowed to continue protesting until the government meets their demands.
"We are ready to stage a bigger protest on Monday because the fuel price hike has left poor fishermen unable to go out in their boats," one protester, Nawawi, was quoted by Antara as saying in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Saturday.
Aside from disbursing subsidized rice, the government is also preparing to take the more radical step of arresting protesters who burn the national flag or effigies of President Megawati Soekarnoputri and Vice President Hamzah Haz.
Human rights activists have said such measures would violate the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of expression.
The protests against the price hikes are the biggest test of Megawati's 18-month presidency. Megawati took over the national leadership in July 2001 after the People's Consultative Assembly removed president Abdurrahman Wahid for incompetence.
A lecturer at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta told The Jakarta Post on Saturday that the government must realize that the protests had escalated and could turn into mass rioting, as happened in January 1974 in what is known as the Malari incident.
"Maybe what happens now will not be as bad as that, but still the government should be prepared for any possibility," the scholar said.
On Jan. 15, 1974, students took to the streets and burned Japanese-made cars to protest foreign domination of the country's economy.