Students protest, demand Habibie, Wiranto to quit

Students protest, demand Habibie, Wiranto to quit

JAKARTA (JP): The capital on Wednesday witnessed a new wave of
street protests by thousands of students after just four days of
uneasy calm.

Voicing the same demand for the resignation of President B.J.
Habibie and Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Chief
Gen. Wiranto, the demonstrators -- mostly students -- aired their
protests at three different spots in the city.

Unlike last week's massive protests that ended in bloody
clashes, the three noisy street demonstrations on Wednesday
passed peacefully.

They, however, caused anger among the motorists trapped in
heavy traffic congestion and who had to use more petrol as they
were diverted by the police.

At the famous Hotel Indonesia roundabout in the heart of the
city, a crowd of some 500 students grouped in the Student Action
Front for Reform and Democracy (Famred) and the Parliament of
Indonesian Students (Parmi) staged a noisy but peaceful rally
under the watchful eyes of military and police personnel.

Besides calling for the resignation of Habibie and Wiranto,
the students also declined to recognize the results of last
week's Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly
(MPR).

They also called for an immediate and transparent
investigation into the Black Friday incident at the Semanggi
cloverleaf in Central Jakarta last week.

Students in the demonstration that started at about 1:30 p.m.
packed almost every inch of the roundabout and parts of the
streets connected to the city's main thoroughfares of Jl. M.H.
Thamrin and Jl. Imam Bonjol.

At the same time, two different groups of students staged
separate demonstrations in front of the Taman Ria Senayan
Recreational Park in Central Jakarta and in front of the Slipi
intersection in West Jakarta to voice similar demands.

Both locations on Jl. Gatot Subroto are only hundreds of
meters from the Assembly's building.

The protesters were dispersed peacefully by the security
authorities after staging the rallies over several hours.

On Friday last week, thirteen people were killed and hundreds
injured when thousands of university students, joined by the
masses, were shot by the troops at Semanggi.

The number of student protesters, involved in the
demonstration in front of the Hotel Indonesia on Wednesday,
escalated as more and more students joined the group marching to
the Atma Jaya Catholic University in Central Jakarta. The Friday
incident at Semanggi occurred right in front of the university.

The group, eventually totaling 3,000 students, then stopped in
front of the university and continued their action until 5:30
p.m. when most of them decided to enter the university's compound
to join a tahlilan (recitation of Moslems' confession of faith)
and a Mass for the Christians in the evening.

Earlier in the morning, hundreds of students from various
universities staged a "ceremony" commemorating the Friday
Semanggi incident at the university campus. (imn/bsr)