Students defend attacks on security personnel

JAKARTA (JP): Protesting students involved in a clash with troops and police officers on Thursday have defended their actions, saying that assaults on security personnel were in retaliation for heavy handed crowd control measures used against them during demonstrations.

"We used to demonstrate peacefully, but we were often beaten and shot at by the security forces. So this time, we fought back," Pea, a student member of the Committee of Students and People for Democracy (Komrad), told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Pea, who studies at Indonusa Esa Unggul University, said that many students rallying near the House of Representatives on Thursday had armed themselves with bamboo canes and iron bars so that they could defend themselves if attacked by the security forces.

As an example, he cited the Nov. 11 incident on Jl. Imam Bonjol in Central Jakarta, when a car driven by Anas Allamoedi from the University of Indonesia was attacked by security officers.

Thrown into a blind panic by the attack, the student drove his car at high speed into a cordon of soldiers, injuring nine.

"In many cases, we tried to prevent demonstrations from turning violent but we came under attack from the security forces," Pea said.

He insisted that the security forces were responsible for instigating the clash on Thursday after 4,000 students had gathered on the road leading to the House.

"We only pushed the police and soldiers. It was them that hit us first," Pea recalled.

"If any of the students appeared on the point of attacking the security forces, we pulled them out of the front line immediately and asked them if they were agents provocateurs," he said.

Eighty students and 14 security officers were injured in Thursday's clashes.

Withdrawal

Jakarta Military Commander Maj. Gen. Djadja Suparman said on Friday that he would withdraw troops dispatched around Atma Jaya University and the Christian University of Indonesia (UKI) if there were any more clashes between students and the security forces.

"If students want to use their own laws, I will have no choice but to recommend the withdrawal of my troops (in the Atma Jaya and UKI areas)," Djadja told the media.

"What do the students want? They have beaten security personnel and burned their tents. Did they think that officers who have been on duty for months to protect the entire nation, including the students, would not react to that kind of provocation?

"Troops are human too," the two-star general said.

He said that security forces were attempting to prevent a clash between students and a gang of thugs from Tangerang when the trouble erupted.

"I am frustrated. If the students want to handle gangs of thugs on their own, we'll let them do it," Djadja said, adding that hoodlums were behind the unrest on Thursday.

Last night, the Jakarta Military Command also denied that a bus taking UKI student protesters back to their campus had been shot at by troops near the Cawang flyover in East Jakarta on Thursday evening.

The command's spokesman, Lt. Col. D.J. Nachrowi, said the overcrowded bus burst a tire, causing it to veer onto the sidewalk.

UKI students claimed that at least 22 of their classmates were wounded after the bus was fired upon by uniformed soldiers at 8:25 p.m on Thursday.

"The students were singing Armed Forces (ABRI) songs with the words all changed. The troops emerged from nowhere, chased the bus and shot the back tire. The bus then stopped and the driver fled," a student told The Jakarta Post.

Troops rushed onto the bus and beat the students, he claimed.

Nachrowi said: "The version of events given by the students was not logical. None of the soldiers were armed with live ammunition. If the tire was hit by a rubber bullet then it would not have burst."

"No soldiers were deployed in the area at that time," he said, adding that the command was still probing the case.

On Friday evening, 300 students grouped in Komrad, the Big Family of University of Indonesia (KB-UI), the Study Forum Information for Democracy (Forsaid) and the People and Students Action Front (Amara) attempted to force their way to the House.

They were blocked at the Semanggi cloverleaf by police and soldiers backed up by four armored vehicles.

The students, some of whom came armed with bamboo poles, demanded concrete political, economic, legal and socio-cultural reforms. (ivy/ylt/emf)