Rallies continue against utility price hikes

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.