INDONESIA & EAST TIMOR
Students clash with army, emergency law
By Pat
Chin
Several days of militant street protests in Indonesia have
forced President B. J. Habibie to delay signing a new
army-backed state security bill.
Critics say that if enacted, the new bill will give the
military sweeping powers to quell dissent during any
government-declared emergency, and could lead to a coup.
Habibie, who is facing re-election in November, took his cue
to delay the bill's implementation from Gen. Wiranto,
Indonesia's top military commander, when it became clear that
protesters would not back down. Wiranto had proposed the new
law as defense secretary of the United-States-backed fascist
regime.
Demonstrations against the "Prevention of Danger Law" first
erupted in Jakarta, the capital, on Sept. 14. The student
organized actions continued on and off until Sept. 20. They
broke out again on Sept. 23 after the parliament voted for the
bill.
Before its passage, thousands of students and their
supporters had flooded the streets of the capital and other
cities in several militant actions that led to bloody clashes
with the security forces.
The draft bill was a target. But activists also denounced
military atrocities in East Timor and Aceh, an Indonesian
province, and have demanded the prosecution of former President
Suharto for abuse of power and theft of public funds while in
office.
Demonstrators also called for justice in the Bank Bali
scandal involving $70 million in public funds reportedly
diverted to the coffers of Habibie's ruling Golkar party.
The "Prevention of Danger Law" was passed by the outgoing
Golkar-Party-dominated parliament whose term expires on Sept.
30. But the government was forced to back down after rebellions
over a two-day period turned so fierce that over 300 people
were injured and seven killed, including one police
officer.
Over 10,000 students and their supporters joined actions in
different parts of Jakarta. Thousands more rallied in Sura
baya, Indonesia's second largest city, in Semarang,Yogyakarta
and Ujungpandang.
Some 3,000 demonstrators nearly reached the parliament in
the center of the capital. When security forces fired tear gas
and plastic bullets, students and other youth retaliated with
rocks and Molotov cocktails. Several police vehicles were
burned.
Running battles between riot police and students raged all
night Sept. 23. Security forces lobbed tear gas at one group
and fired bullets into the air while advancing. But the
protesters retreated to Jakarta's Atmajaya Catholic University.
Inside, they chanted, "Revolution, revolution until death."
The mostly young people, reported the Los Angeles Times,
included Muslims and Catholics, Javanese and ethnic Chinese.
Outside the walls, the fire from a torched military bus lit the
night.
Atmajaya University was the center of student-organized
demonstrations last year that forced the end of Suharto's
brutal 32-year rule as a pro-imperialist puppet. Since his
resignation, however, nothing has changed. The same U.S.-backed
repressive state apparatus remains in place. And the Indonesian
people continue to be super-exploited by the beneficiaries of
the capitalist profit system.
Riot police later stormed the campus at dawn on Friday. But
the furor only escalated as protesters continued their
ferocious battles.
"Burning buses and cars littered a main street, as the
sounds of gunfire echoed off the skyscrapers," reported the New
York Times. "Troops fought with thousands of students and
others in the heart of Jakarta's business district."
Stones, paving blocks and bottles flew. Banks and other
companies shut down. Traffic ground to a halt.
Despite the government's announcement the day before that it
would delay implementation of the new security law, on Sept. 25
there was yet another march on the parliament from Atmajaya
University. Again the students chanted an old refrain:
"Revolution until we die."
A candlelight vigil was also held for the seven people
killed in the protests, organized by women from 15 human-rights
and reform groups. Three of the slain were hit by sniper fire,
according to a forensic specialist at Cipto Mangkusumo
Hospital.
Meanwhile, in the North Sumatran capital of Medan, 2,000
students blocked roads and clashed with police in angry
anti-military protests there. They demanded the total
withdrawal of the "Prevention of Danger Law."
Downtown Manokwari, in the province of Irian Java, was
paralyzed by demonstrations against police brutality and the
cop killing of John Wamanafa, a resident. Three police homes
were reportedly firebombed, and the local parliament, the state
radio station and the office of the public service
administration were thrashed.
And in East Timor
In East Timor, returning refugees broke into warehouses to
liberate food and other desperately needed material.
As Australian-led occupation forces spread out over that
country, withdrawing Indonesian troops set fire to the local
radio station and army barracks in Dili, the capital. They also
stole two trucks of aid for starving Timorese refugees.
Most of East Timor had already been burned and looted in the
wave of terror unleashed by army-backed militias after the
people there voted for independence from Indonesia.
Indonesia had invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975
with the full backing of Washington, Australia and other
imperialist countries like Britain, which now pose as the
saviors of the East Timorese. An estimated 200,000 people have
died during Indonesia's brutal 25-year occupation of that
half-island nation. Thousands more were killed in the recent
spate of militia rampages.
Washington's backing of intervention in East Timor, against
its client state in Indonesia, isn't motivated by humanitarian
concern. It stems instead from its desire to keep the
Indonesian military from splintering under the weight of its
own mistakes and over-extension.
The U.S. government's goal is to thwart any revolutionary
upsurge in the region that could spell doom for capitalist
expansion and imperialist plunder, and it has depended for 35
years on the Indonesian army for this.
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