Students still camp at the House
JAKARTA (JP): Students protesting President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid camped inside the House of Representatives compound for a second straight night on Tuesday as violence marred a rival demonstration against the Golkar Party.
More than 2,000 spirited demonstrators, mostly students from the University of Indonesia (UI) and the Syarief Hidayatullah State Islamic Institute (IAIN), continued occupying the House ground after People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Amien Rais told them to remain patient until the assembly made its final decision on the fate of the embattled President.
Similar to their predecessors who helped accelerate the ouster of long-time ruler Soeharto almost three years ago, the students pledged to remain at the House until the MPR set a date for a special session to impeach the President.
"We will only leave the House complex after obtaining confirmation from the Assembly that it will hold a special session as soon as possible," Taufik Riyadi, who chairs the UI Student Executive Board, said.
Unlike the previous day that saw them take to streets, the demonstrators gave continuous speeches on Tuesday demanding Abdurrahman step down voluntarily and the Assembly call a special session.
They asked House Speaker Akbar Tandjung to stand on top of a car, not to deliver a speech but to listen to the students' demands.
"We want you to listen carefully to the people, who want the President to step down," one of the students said.
The students had their supply of provisions logistically organized, with food, water and even fruit regularly arriving at the House for them.
An employee in charge of the supplies refused to identify the donors, saying it was not his business.
Later in the evening, the students were awakened by the arrival of some 2,000 farmers from West Java, who had just marched across the city demanding that the government recognize their land ownership rights, in response to much of their land being claimed by state-owned plantations.
Security personnel in charge of the compound allowed them to enter the grounds through a back entrance.
Support
Five kilometers away, over 1,000 Abdurrahman supporters braved a heavy downpour as they held a mass prayer in front of the presidential palace.
The people, mostly from East Java, the President's stronghold, also called for dissolution of the Golkar Party, which they accused of maneuvering Abdurrahman's ousting, as well as the revocation of the House's Feb. 1 censure issued in connection with the President's alleged role in two financial scandals.
"We will support Gus Dur until the last drop of our blood because Gus Dur was constitutionally elected," Mukaffi, coordinator of the Front of Democracy Defenders (FPD), screamed.
Another rally against Golkar at its Jakarta provincial chapter office on Jl. Pegangsaan Barat, Central Jakarta, turned violent. At least three students were injured and five others arrested after the protesters clashed with security troops.
The three are being treated in St. Carolus hospital, Central Jakarta.
One of the injured, Wizar Lazuardi Panjaya, 27, said police rammed them with motorbikes and beat them.
There were some 1,000 students, consisting of at least eight student groups uniting under the Golkar Disbandment Alliance (ABG), at the rally.
"They wanted to get into our office but police blocked them. A couple of hours later, molotov cocktails were thrown at the police," vice chairman of Golkar's Jakarta branch, Djonharro, told The Jakarta Post.
Police responded to the attack with teargas, then chased the crowds and beat them.
Police also found nine boxes containing 336 molotov cocktails and a machete in a parked public minibus not far from the area.
Kasino, a student of Moestopo University and a member of the Students Action Front for Reforms and Democracy (Famred), admitted that the cocktails belonged to the students.
"There are actually 400 bombs. We made them ourselves, but it was only for defense against repressive officers. The machete is not ours," he told the Post.
The students, he added, planned to sleep over at the nearby University of Indonesia campus in Salemba.
Meanwhile thousands of members of Banser, Nahdlatul Ulama's (NU) security task force, and supporters of the National Awakening Party (PKB) have left their home towns in Java, including Yogyakarta, headed for Jakarta in their effort to counter the anti-Gus Dur demonstrations.
However, the organizations' leaders denied on Tuesday giving official instructions to their members to go to Jakarta. They also threatened to demonstrate their full strength if the situation in Jakarta got worse.
East Java's Banser chairman M. Rofiq said in Surabaya on Tuesday that all 150,000 Banser members in the province were ready to move if things became worse.
"We are just waiting for instructions from headquarters. We hope that the security officers have been lenient on the anti-Gus Dur demonstrators and we want them to treat us the same," Rofiq said.
Abdurrahman had chaired NU for 15 years and founded the PKB.
In the West Java capital of Bandung, an official of West Java Ansor and Banser said that a total of 90,000 Banser and 270,000 Ansor members could be fielded to Jakarta at any time to defend Gus Dur.
In Semarang, secretary of the PKB Central Java chapter, M. Karding, said that almost 7,000 supporters of Gus Dur, including members of Banser and PKB, had left Central Java for Jakarta to support to the President.
The Yogyakarta's chief of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) youth wing organization Ansor, Nuruddin Amin, joined the chorus of support, saying that a number of Ansor members had left for Jakarta following the situation's recent escalation.
However, he did not reveal the exact number of Yogyakarta Ansor members who had already left for the capital. (team)