Student protests against Soeharto fan across city

Student protests against Soeharto fan across city

JAKARTA (JP): The city witnessed another wave of anti-Soeharto
protests on Monday when over 1,200 university students from
different groups rallied at the Presidential Palace, Attorney
General's Office and near the residence of former president
Soeharto.

The demands remained the same: bring the ex-strongman and
alleged corruptor to court!

No clashes were reported although the protesting students, who
have taken to the streets for many consecutive days to air their
demands to President Abdurrahman Wahid and his cabinet ministers,
were sometimes blocked by cordons of police and security
officers.

During the rally at the office of Attorney General Marzuki
Darusman at around 3:30 p.m., the crowd of some 1,000 students
from the Indonesian Students Network (JMI) and Oppressed People's
Community (Karat) turned angry after learning that the gate at
the rear part of the office was locked.

They abruptly forced their way in by breaking down the gate.
Some of them lowered the red-and-white national flag to half
mast.

An hour later, Marzuki -- accompanied by Director of Politics
at Intelligence Affairs, Purnama Munthe, met the students and
assured them that the probe into Soeharto's alleged corruption
cases would not be halted.

The case, he said, has already been slated to be brought to
the court before Aug. 10.

Upon being asked if he dared to resign if Soeharto walked away
free from the investigation, Marzuki replied: "We won't step
back, we dare to keep going (with the investigation)".

One of the protesters then handed over a lipstick to Marzuki
to symbolize, according to the students, the womanish attitude of
the Attorney General which, they said, cannot keep his promises.

It's the second gift the Attorney General has received in the
past few weeks. Last month students presented him with a woman's
underwear, bought from a nearby street vendor in Blok M area.

The students arrived at Marzuki's office in 10 buses after
staging a similar rally at the Presidential Palace in Central
Jakarta.

They failed to meet with the President because he was
attending the inauguration ceremony of the Habibie Center at the
Jakarta Convention Center.

The students refused to meet acting State Secretary Bondan
Gunawan, who offered to meet with them in place of Gus Dur, as
the President is popularly called.

In their written statement, the students, calling themselves
as the government's permanent opposition, demanded the government
uphold the law and put Soeharto on trial, as well as probe
various alleged human rights violations perpetrated during his
32-year rule.

"The weakening rupiah, the growing number of protests, new KKN
(corruption, collusion and nepotism) practice networks in the
current government have proven that Gus Dur and Megawati
Soekarnoputri have failed to lead this country," the students
said in their statement.

Gus Dur's political efforts have been ineffective in
progressing an economic recovery.

Before going to Marzuki's office, the students drove to Jl.
Teuku Umar and stopped about 200 meters from Soeharto's
residence, and aired the same protest.

Separately, some 200 students from City Forum (Forkot) were
kept away from Soeharto's private residence on Jl. Cendana in
Central Jakarta by the tight security of some 100 police officers
around the area.

They had planned to camp for a week around the fountain on Jl.
Teuku Umar, some 200 meters from Soeharto's house.

"We decided to camp here for a week until we see a concrete
development in the legal proceeding against Soeharto," Forkot
coordinator Didi said.

"We'll stay longer if there is no significant progress with
the probe," he said.

Oktav, a student from Udayana University in Bali, said that
such protests show the students' solidarity with the nation.

"That's all we have," he said.

However, at about 6 p.m. the students changed their minds and
marched to the Proklamasi Monument.

According to them, they will stay at the monument area instead
where they will show a movie about earlier student movements in
the country.

Before leaving the scene, they burned a one meter effigy of
Soeharto in front of the troops.

Soeharto, who resigned on May 21, 1998 following massive waves
of anti-government protests, was about to be moved by the current
government to an unidentified place of safety, Marzuki said
separately on Monday. (06/01)