Students to protest if status quo persists

JAKARTA (JP): A wave of student rallies will overrun the capital and major cities across the country if the status quo force is restored to power, researchers said on Thursday.

Muridan S. Widjojo, who coordinated a study into the pivotal student movement in 1998, predicted that student protests would take a more radical form than that which overturned former president Soeharto last year if the status quo retains its grip. He said it would be especially dramatic if incumbent B.J. Habibie was elected president.

"Certain political situations, in which pro-status quo groups cling on to power, will precipitate the student demonstrations," said Muridan of the National Institute of Science.

He referred to the New Order's protege Golkar Party, which despite finishing second to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), has a good chance of winning the presidential election thanks to an electoral system which favors the party.

Golkar has named Habibie its sole presidential candidate, and announced on Thursday the formation of a special team to clear the way for Habibie to win his first full five-year term.

Fiery student rallies demanding sweeping reforms in May last year, which climaxed with thousands of students occupying the House of Representatives, precipitated Soeharto's resignation. Some of the students then vowed to target Habibie, who took over from his mentor Soeharto.

Calling the students the anti-New Order group, Muridan said his team's research revealed that the activists had maintained their radicalism since initiating the resistance movement against the government in the late 1980s.

He said the government's harsh measures to silence the students in the 1990s had instead encouraged their resistance fight and fueled their militancy.

"The students consciously took on the risk of violent measures by security personnel against them, arrests and imprisonment. The more repressive the government was, the more they believe that the regime has to be opposed," Muridan said.

He said the study found that to some extent radical student activists considered clashes with security troops a part of their strategy.

The study acknowledged the role played by the People's Democratic Party (PRD) in spreading radicalism in the recent student movement. PRD was banned by Soeharto's government on charges of subversion following the forceful takeover of Megawati Soekarnoputri's PDI office on July 27, 1996.

The study, conducted by seven senior researchers, concluded that moderate student movements also contributed to the country's changing of the guard last year, but has now ceased because the activists did not specifically oppose the New Order.

"These moderate students implicitly believe that the system built by the New Order is fine, but they came up to criticize the political elite, whose immoral behavior had plunged the country into a crisis," the research paper says.

Muridan said radical students were now regrouping to consolidate themselves and discuss strategies.

"They meet regularly every two or three weeks and are seeking justification to come back to the streets," he said. He added that the nerve centers of the movement were in the country's major towns, notably Jakarta, Purwokerto in Central Java, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.

"Although opposed to the June elections, the students did not hold rallies against the event because they saw it would backfire on their movement," Muridan said.

The rally against the polls held by PRD activists ended in violence earlier this month, and Muridan said he believed it served as an early warning to the status quo force of bigger protests in the future. (amd)