[asia-apec 886] ASSOCIATED PRESS, Six Killed in Indonesian Protests

[Jaringan Kerja Budaya]

November 13, 1998


Six Killed in Indonesian Protests

Filed at 12:53 p.m. EST

By The Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- In the worst violence since riots toppled
President Suharto in May, at least six people were killed today when
Indonesian security forces battled rock-throwing protesters and street mobs
attacked suspected police informers. 

Local media reports said the death toll could climb and that possibly
several hundred had been injured in clashes with police, who fired plastic
bullets, tear gas and water cannons at the protesters. Hospitals said their
emergency rooms were full of bleeding students, many in critical condition
with gunshot wounds. 

Pressed by the bloody protests raging outside, Indonesia's highest
legislative body today endorsed a new government blueprint for the troubled
nation. 

The 1,000-member People's Consultative Assembly also named Suharto in a
decree demanding a massive government crackdown on corruption under his
32-year rule. 

As thousands of troops and police patrolled outside, the assembly voted
unanimously to pass 11 of 12 reform decrees. A 12th decree passed 784-123
after a lengthy debate -- the first time in three decades that the assembly
failed to reach total agreement on an issue. 

It backed a plan by President B.J. Habibie to hold parliamentary elections
in May or June and to open the ballot to a wide range of new political
parties. It set no election date, however. 

Assembly members, many of them holdovers from the authoritarian Suharto era,
hailed the decrees as major reforms, pointing to their demands for greater
human rights and economic restructuring. 

But students and other critics said they did not represent major democratic
change and only entrenched the power of the status quo, including Habibie,
the military, and the ruling Golkar Party. 

As the assembly met, violence raged in the capital. Mobs burned tires while
baton-wielding soldiers dispersed the crowd. Armored personnel carriers
rumbled along Jakarta's main boulevard, and troops fired warning shots,
chasing thousands of protesters through Jakarta's downtown area, where
offices and shops were closed. 

Molotov cocktails exploded in flames in front of police lines. 

Soldiers were seen firing what appeared to be blanks and plastic bullets
into buildings at Atama Jaya Catholic University. Several students, some
bleeding, were removed on stretchers. 

Tosik Sutina, a morgue official at the nearby Jakarta Hospital, said two
bodies of male students were brought from the university with gunshot wounds
to their chests. 

Other hospitals reported a steady stream of injured. 

Syaiful, a morgue attendant at Cipto Mungunkusomo Hospital, said it received
the bodies of one male student and a civilian security guard. Both also had
gunshot wounds to their chest. 

In East Jakarta, a mob beat a third man to death in a street while soldiers
looked on. Witnesses reported dozens of other mob attacks against
individuals accused of being police informers. 

The clashes followed two deaths -- a high school student and a police
officer -- in similar street battles Thursday night in Jakarta. More than
100 students were hospitalized, some with serious injuries. 

The violence since Thursday night was the worst in Jakarta since riots
forced Suharto to quit in May. 

Late today, a smiling Habibie was whisked past the protests in a heavily
guarded motorcade to the Parliament, where he closed the four-day assembly. 

He expressed his condolences for the deaths of the student protesters saying
they were the ``victims of the process of reform'' that would bring
Indonesia a better future. 

Today's approval of a new political blueprint for Indonesia comes as the
country battles its worst economic crisis in decades. Inflation,
unemployment and poverty rates are soaring. 

The assembly's aim for total consensus stumbled when the Islamic-oriented
United Development Party refused to put its name to a decree calling for
only a gradual reduction of the 75-seat military representation in the
500-seat Parliament. 

The United Development Party, which backs student demands for an immediate
end to the military's political role, staged an unprecedented protest
walkout when the issue was debated. 

Military commander Gen. Wiranto had warned that an estimated 30,000 police
and troops deployed across the capital would take ``firmer action'' if
student protests again got out of control. 

Clashes continued into the night.