Soeharto willing to hold dialog with students
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)