Soeharto willing to hold dialog with students
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto has expressed a willingness to hold a dialog with students who have been protesting rising prices and demanding reforms.
State Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs Agung Laksono said yesterday the President would gladly talk to the students, especially if they could provide him with concrete proposals on how to boost development.
"He (Soeharto) said in principle that it's OK. A dialog between students and the President is possible...He is accustomed to meeting people, including farmers, fishermen and athletes," Agung said after meeting with Soeharto at the latter's private residence on Jl. Cendana, Central Jakarta, yesterday.
Thousands of students across the country have been staging hundreds of protests, some even marred by violence, demanding lower prices of basic commodities and sweeping economic and political reforms.
They also have demanded an audience with Soeharto to air their grievances.
Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto said Sunday he would meet with students from 17 universities Saturday.
Students were angered by a statement from Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Gen. (ret) Feisal Tanjung last week dismissing the student requests to talk with the President as being "impossible".
In the past, the President has held dialogs with farmers and villagers. Most of the prepared questions raised to the President were, however, nonpolitical in nature.
"A mediator is not needed (in the dialog)," said Agung.
Student rallies continued yesterday at several campuses in Central and East Java.
Seven people were injured yesterday morning, including two security personnel, when 200 students of the state-run Sunan Kalijaga Islamic Institute in Yogyakarta attempted to march off their campus to the provincial council building.
Troops blocked the students and insisted that they stay inside their campus. Students then threw stones at them.
"Why are we not allowed to channel our aspirations to the local council?" shouted one of the student leaders.
Diponegoro University students in Semarang sent a letter to Minister of Justice Muladi, demanding him to enforce the law.
"Our demonstration is not engineered by other parties, it comes from our own awareness," they told Muladi, who is also their rector.
Dozens of students of the Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS) in East Java held a forum yesterday and urged the government to fight against corruption, nepotism and collusion.
Airlangga University students in Surabaya, however, believe that the President should be allowed six months to restore the country's chaotic economy.
Poll organizer Dharmawan Tri said here yesterday that 365 or 86.9 percent of 420 students queried last week believed that the People's Consultative Assembly should hold a special meeting to demand an accountability from Soeharto if he failed to overcome the economic crisis in that time period. (har/nur/23/44/prb)