Unidentified assailants open fire on students rallying in Makassar
Unidentified assailants open fire on students rallying in Makassar
MAKASSAR, South Sulawesi (JP): Violence tore apart a semblance
of peace here as three students were shot by an unidentified
group of assailants in front of the Satriya Makassar University
during a protest on Friday.
Eyewitnesses said the assailants were on motorcycles and in
uniforms commonly worn by riot police.
The students were Sadrak, who was shot in the arm, and Matius
and Hajar Aswad, who were shot in the legs.
Hundreds of students of the private university took to the
streets on Friday in protest against the fuel price hike which
had triggered an increase in prices of basic commodities.
They burned used tires and set up a roadblock in the southern
part of the city, causing severe traffic congestions since
morning.
In the afternoon, Makassar City Police chief Sr. Supt. Aryanto
Budihardjo spoke to the students, asking them to remove the
street barricades to ease the traffic congestion.
A group of motorcyclists then suddenly appeared and opened
fire on the students. They sped off so quickly that nobody could
identify them or the motorcycles they rode.
"I have no idea who they were," Aryanto said, assuring that
the assailants were not his men.
The shooting took place only one day after Governor HZB
Palaguna and students from the state Islamic Institute "made
peace" and agreed to set up a joint team to monitor commodity
prices in markets.
Makassar has been rocked by fierce student demonstrations
since Monday.
An attack by an unidentified group of people on protesting
students took place in Yogyakarta on Thursday. Police denied any
link to Friday's attack.
Price control
In response to the violence-marred rallies in Makassar, the
Golkar Party faction at the House of Representatives threatened
to quit the ongoing deliberation on the draft 2001 state budget
unless the government controls the falling price of unhusked rice
in South Sulawesi, while ironically other consumer goods are on
the rise.
Deputy chairman of the Golkar faction, Parawansyah, who is a
native of Makassar, said the unhusked rice price has dropped to
between Rp 500 and Rp 700 per kilogram from the government-
approved price of Rp 1,050 per kg after the local logistics
agency (Bulog) declined to purchase the unhusked rice due its
financial shortage.
"So far, there are more than 160,000 tons of unhusked rice
remaining in several stores in Pinrang regency and 300,000 tons
have been abandoned in other regencies because of Bulog's weak
purchasing power," Parawansyah told a media conference.
He said the government should stop the import of low-priced
rice and force Bulog to purchase the unhusked rice from farmers
instead of securing the national stock.
Enggartiasto Lukito, another member of the faction, said the
government could allocate part of the Rp 800 billion it gained
from the reduction of fuel subsidies to purchase the farmers'
rice.
Golkar faction chairman Syamsul Mu'arif said the student
demonstrations was the main topic of the faction's plenary
session on Friday because the fuel price hike was only a trigger
while the main problem is the people's disappointment with the
government's inability to purchase the thousands of tons of
unhusked rice in the province and control the prices of
essentials.
Parawansyah dismissed reports that political motives were
behind the violent student demonstrations. (27/sur/rms)