Violence closes Makassar university

Jupriadi, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

Hasanuddin University campus was closed for three days following mounting conflict between students on Tuesday, which left more students and a lecturer injured.

After a meeting between the university's management and senate, university rector Rady A. Gany issued a circular posted in all educational buildings in the campus, stipulating that the campus would be closed from Aug. 27 through Aug. 30, and no students would be allowed to enter the campus during those three days.

The new ruling was issued following a new clash between students in the campus that left dozens of them and a lecturer injured.

"The decision is made to avoid more casualties and to prevent the conflict from spreading to other faculties and other universities in the city," said the rector after the meeting.

Makassar Police chief Sr. Comr. Amin Saleh, who attended the meeting, said that all students trapped in the campus during the clash on Tuesday would be evacuated and returned to their homes while the police carried out a thorough investigation into the incidents.

Some 300 security personnel were deployed to restore security and order, both inside and outside the campus, after the bloody clash between the students on Tuesday.

The second clash broke out when hundreds of the technical school's students entered the campus following the management's failure to arrest students who had attacked their school on Monday and left five students seriously injured.

Finding no students in the mathematics and physics school, the angry mob attacked other schools, including the arts and political science schools.

Dozens of students were injured after being caught up accidentally in the violence. Assistant to the rector for student affairs Mappajantji was also injured when he tried to mediate between opposing students.

The injured victims were taken to the city general hospital.

A group of students from the technical faculty, who were equipped with machetes, arrows and stones, launched their attack in the absence of security personnel.

Witnesses said they hurled stones at several buildings and at a number of students who had not been involved in the brawl that broke out on Monday.

The student brawl was triggered by an exchange of insulting comments between new students on Sunday, causing those at the mathematics and physics school to attack those of the technical school.

All academic facilities at the two schools were badly damaged and five students of the mathematics and physics school were wounded.

Students of the technical school vowed on Monday to take revenge unless the management and security authorities arrested, within 24 hours, all the students allegedly involved in the attack on their campus.

Rusni Fitri, who witnessed the incidents both on Monday and Tuesday, blamed the campus management and local authorities for the incident.

"The security authorities were not prepared when the attack was made and the rector was too slow in taking action against the students involved," said Rusni Etty, a student of the arts school.