Students catapulted into controversy

JAKARTA (JP): The city police have uncovered a program to train protesters involving hundreds of students at a university in Tangerang, west of here, an officer said on Monday.

Based on surveillance and evidence recovered, police believed that students participating in the program planned to attack security personnel deployed to secure antigovernment rallies, city police spokesman Lt. Col. Edward Aritonang told reporters.

However, Aritonang refused to name the student groups involved, the university in question, or who was training the students.

The officer only said that intelligence officers, unbeknown to the students, had found dozens of imported catapults at the university.

He said the students had been practicing using the catapults from various distances during their illicit training sessions and concluded that they were preparing to mount a major assault on the security forces.

"We believe that a huge number of catapults have been imported," Aritonang said.

He said that police had been monitoring activities at the university since shortly before the start of the Ramadhan fasting month.

"Routine patrols in the area have spotted a number of students practicing," Aritonang said.

Students have also been learning how to orate and how to form human barricades, the officer explained.

So far, he said, the local police have not made any arrests in connection with the discovery, adding that the matter was the subject of an ongoing investigation.

Aritonang's disclosure of the discovery is extremely unusual. Normal police practice holds that announcements of this nature are made only after arrests have been made.

Since Ramadhan, students in Greater Jakarta have called a temporary halt to antigovernment rallies to appease a general public increasingly frustrated by the disruptions which their activities bring to the capital.

However, some student groups have already announced their intention of returning to the streets again shortly after Idul Fitri, which marks an end to the month of fasting. (emf)