Reminiscing on the once unthinkable fall of Soeharto

Reminiscing on the once unthinkable fall of Soeharto

It would have been unthinkable even a few years ago to imagine
the fall of Soeharto, one of Asia's most powerful men, which
happened back in May 1998. After all, he had just been reelected.

I had to admit that I was among the many Indonesians at the
time who believed that Soeharto might not be defeated. He
remained sturdy enough, with money and his strong network of
military buddies.

The heated antigovernment protests that hit the streets in
several cities across the country would only give him and his
soldiers more legal reasons to shoot and kill, we thought.
Imagining the fall of Soeharto was too extreme, too soon and
unthinkable.

Prior to Soeharto's resignation, many media still had to be
extremely careful in choosing the correct words for their
publications to avoid being closed down by him. But just like
poker, strategy is necessary to win the pot.

It was clear that the media -- from print to broadcast -- were
all standing behind the students' movement ever since the first
protest hit the streets after his reelection.

With the tension continuing to rise in all major cities, The
Jakarta Post set up a small team assigned to cover the hustle and
bustle of the street protests. And I was on the team. Our fellow
correspondents in other towns were also put on alert.

In Jakarta, we divided the team into shifts and "zones", with
reporters embedded with the students, the troops, the mobs and
the paramedics. Since the situation was very unpredictable,
everyone in the group was to strictly follow the standard
procedures for safety and any other instructions sent through
their pagers and cellulars by the "chief", who was attached to
our office to sort out the latest reports for zoning purposes and
warnings.

We even bugged the police and intelligence radios, to snoop in
to find out what was really going on and to where all the horrors
were heading.

We already smelled trouble when the stubborn government
announced fuel and electricity hikes on May 5. In a matter of
hours, our forebodings came true.

The North Sumatra capital of Medan turned into a nightmare
when angry mobs, including high school students, smashed shop
windows and burned vehicles in the streets after a clash with
security troops during a rally protesting the government hikes.

Anger quickly spread like wildfire through the nation.

The number of rallies, with more professionals and a variety
of groups joining in, continued to escalate during those early
days in May, but they hadn't reached the peak yet. The shooting
of the four Trisakti University students on May 12 was the
trigger that unleashed the full fury of the nation.

Some of our team members were already at the scene since
morning, as we'd learned the previous evening that thousands of
students from Trisakti University, better known as the university
for the rich, would finally join the antigovernment protests by
marching from their campus in Grogol to the House of
Representatives, approximately a one-hour walk.

But the military and the police, armed with automatic rifles,
guns and batons, had been ordered to block the students before
they had even left the campus.

After a series of failed heated negotiations and light
clashes, the shootings occurred. The young students sprinted back
into the university compound under a hail of wildly spraying
bullets. Our team members had no other option but to find safety
to avoid the bullets. One member was hastily asked to get into a
roaring ambulance for safety, as the troops fired their guns
every which way.

Shortly after dusk, the entire country was shocked: The troops
had killed the young protesters. Our team member managed to get
into the emergency room of Sumber Waras hospital after pretending
to be one of the victims' relatives, only to confirm the number
of the dead.

The next day and the two days following, Jakarta became a
nasty and dangerous town for everyone. Security forces seemed
powerless and were nowhere to be seen to stop the looting, the
torching of buildings and the anti-Chinese violence that spread
unchecked through the capital.

For safety reasons, we asked our female team member, who is of
Chinese descent, to stay away from the crowds -- she had already
been stopped several times by mobs just because of the way she
looked.

A day after Soeharto's resignation, we -- in a group -- walked
to the House in the evening, as we'd just learned that security
forces would soon carry out a peaceful operation to turn the
students, who rejected Habibie's appointment to replace Soeharto,
out of the complex.

Near the rear gates, we saw groups of soldiers standing on
parade. We were then checked by the students at the gates. Only a
few steps after we entered the compound, we were startled by
gunshots and loud shouts ordering "Tembak! Tembak!" (Shoot!
Shoot!).

The lights went out. The students abruptly dispersed, sprinted
and screamed. We rushed toward our right and hastily helped each
other to climb a 2.5-meter-high wall. Thanks to our fear at the
sudden shots and thunderous voices, some of us, even the women,
managed to climb the wall on our own. We, of course, couldn't
have done it without the threat of those shots and shouts.

Those unforgettable, exhausting days of May 1998 have taught
me and the rest of the team so many precious lessons, including
how the impossible could become the possible.

Armed to the teeth with inflammatory posters, megaphones and
the impassioned rhetoric of Reformasi (Reform), the students
teamed up with the "real" people and the media to finally win the
battle against a repressive regime.

Ironically, it's true that the truth, justice and democracy
they fought for remain an empty slogan today.

Most of our team members are still with the Post. Three of us
went overseas to study. A few others have left.

But the spirit and camaraderie we felt as a team during those
horrifying days of history will never fade.

-- K. Basrie