Student protest greets Habibie on visit to C. Java

KENDAL, Central Java (JP): About 100 students staged a demonstration here on Thursday to demand that President B.J. Habibie take concrete measures to lower the price of staple foods, even as the President was asserting his commitment to help the poor in a ceremony a few hundreds meter away.

"End people's suffering," the students, who identified themselves as the Indonesian Moslem Students Committee (KAMMI), shouted in the direction of the gathering.

"The government is determined to prioritize the development of human resources and the alleviation of poverty," the President said in his speech, unaware of the demonstration outside the venue.

Habibie visited Kendal to present scholarships for students and financial assistance for schools worth Rp 140 billion (US$ 12 million) as part of the government's program to assist education in the province.

The President also disclosed that the government has allocated Rp 1.5 trillion (US$ 1.37 billion) to help millions of school children and 500,000 university students in the 1998/1999 fiscal year.

"The government has given scholarships to a total of four million primary, junior, and senior high school students and provided operational assistance to 130,000 schools throughout the country," Habibie noted.

Habibie said he was very concerned about the number of students dropping out of school and university as a result of the economic crisis.

He noted that only 54 percent of the country's 40 million children between the ages of seven and 15 were now attending the compulsory nine years of education compared to 72.26 percent two years ago.

"This figure is similar to the figure for five years ago. The sharp decrease is really worrying us," the President noted.

The Rp 1.5 trillion fund is part of the country's social safety net program which was established with the assistance of donor agencies including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The student demonstration did not disturb the ceremony.

In their banners, the students demanded Habibie lower the price of basic commodities and punish corrupt officials, especially those responsible for distributing foodstuffs.

In a separate meeting with 17 top Australian businessmen on Thursday evening, the President reiterated his pledge to help unfortunate students, saying that the future of the nation depended on them.

"(Until now) we have never spent more than $1 billion on education scholarships," the President boasted.

During the meeting, the entrepreneurs told Habibie that 91 percent of Australian companies with bases here had maintained their operations throughout the economic crisis.

"We were here with you when you were in a pleasant condition and we will remain with you during these difficult times," said Leigh Purnell, the director of the Australian Industry Group.

"I must try to convince the other nine percent to come back to Indonesia," the President replied to Purnell's statement.

The meeting was also attended by Sabam Siagian, who chairs the Indonesia-Australia Business Council (IABAC), and Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. (har/prb)