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)