Thousands rally to mark Soeharto's resignation
JAKARTA (JP): Thousands of protesters staged rallies here and in several major towns across the country on Monday to mark the third anniversary of former president Soeharto's resignation.
In Jakarta, hundreds of students grouped under the City Forum (Forkot) rallied in front of the Attorney General's Office, demanding the prosecutors bring the ailing former ruler to trial for alleged corruption charges and misuse of power during his almost 32 years in office.
Arriving in several mini buses, the students later staged a protest inside the compound of the House of Representatives before they moved toward Soeharto's residence in the plush Menteng district in Central Jakarta.
Another group, the Indonesian Formal Students Institution Alliance (Alfonso), staged a protest in front of the Merdeka Palace in Central Jakarta to demand President Abdurrahman Wahid resign for his failure to uphold the people's reform mandate.
The students said Abdurrahman's administration was a new form of Soeharto's New Order regime.
On May 21, three years ago, Soeharto relinquished the presidency following a wave of massive proreform student protests and nationwide violence that claimed more than 400 lives.
The now 79-year-old former president has been named a suspect in corruption charges.
Many expected the change would pave the way for sweeping reforms, which would include the trial of corrupt officials and those accused of past human rights abuse.
In Yogyakarta, violence almost marred the rally to commemorate the third anniversary of Soeharto's downfall when some 80 members of Anticommunist Paramilitary Movement (Gepako) met head on with student protesters and threatened to "cleanse" them.
The protesters, representing the Anti New Order Students' Alliance and National Students League for Democracy (LMND), had to seek police assistance when they were leaving the Yogyakarta provincial legislature on Jl. Malioboro.
Several Gepako members rushed into the complex, where protesters were meeting with local councillors. The intruders began to intimidate the students, while many others stood by outside the complex.
"If you're communists, we (Gepako) will kill you," Gandung Pardiman, Gepako's coordinator, told the protesters, saying that the rallies had been orchestrated by communists.
Separately in Semarang, the capital of Central Java, around 100 students aired demands that Abdurrahman, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri, DPR speaker Akbar Tandjung and the Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly Amien Rais resign due to their inability to run the government and to overcome the nation's myriad problems.
The students staged a demonstration outside the Central Java provincial council.
Meanwhile in the East Nusa Tenggara capital of Kupang, students from various universities, rallied outside the local provincial council building after marching through the town.
The students held orations and sang patriotic songs in their protest, demanding the Golkar party be dissolved.
Hundreds of youths and students from various organizations and student groups marched through the capital of West Java, Bandung, to recollect the resignation of Soeharto.
The demonstrators distributed leaflets in which they warned of the possible return of the New Order and military to the political stage.
"We are disappointed that after three years following Soeharto's downfall, there has yet to be any significant progress in our country," one of the protesters, Febrianto, told reporters. (har/25/23/30)