After Student Shootings, No Turning Back

News Summary and Analysis by Monitor Staff

At Trisakti University -- where many of this island nation's upper-class families send their children, and is the equivalent of Stanford or Harvard in the U.S. -- troops opened fire on about 5,000 singing, chanting students, observers said, but the protestors offered no other resistance. Police snipers fired from an overpass as students fled back towards their campus, and at least two were shot on the steps of the school Administration building, press reports said.

"We didn't do anything at all when all of a sudden the police started shooting," one 19-year-old demonstrator told the Los Angeles Times.

Upon his return from a Middle East summit in Cairo, President Suharto immediately ordered action against "criminals and looters," and the military moved out in force into the streets. Earlier, the dictator said his administration would not tolerate student demonstrations.

With 15,000 troops out in force, Jakarta began to calm down Friday from four days in which mobs had virtually taken over the streets, paralyzing the city and sending Chinese-descent citizens and foreigners fleeing to Singapore and Thailand. Neighboring Malaysia declared that no Malaysians were to visit the country.

Rescue workers Friday pulled the charred bodies of more than 250 people from ruins of at least five department stores and shopping malls set on fire by looters who ran wild on Thursday.

The worst blaze was at the five-story suburban Jakarta department store where 170 people were reported to have died. An Army Sergeant told Reuters most of the victims were looters who were busy ransacking the shops in the five-story plaza when rioters set it ablaze.

The State Department's tepid response deploring the killings missed the gravity of this particular event, or chose not to address it. What happened in Jakarta last week -- and will likely continue into the twilight weeks to come -- is no less a watershed in Indonesian history than Suharto's 1965 rise to power. Its consequences may be just as painful. Unless the military is absolutely determined to be restrained -- or even joins the otherwise universal movement of protest again Suharto -- there is a terrible potential for death on a vast scale. With it will emerge a profound challenge to one man: General Wiranto, commander of the armed forces (like many Indonesians, he uses just one name).

General Wiranto, a Suharto loyalist who nonetheless has demonstrated unusual independence as the country's supreme military commander, has given credence to the need for reforms, which Suharto says cannot come until he leaves office in five years. Wiranto has dared to say they can come earlier. But whether General Wiranto is any different from any other of Suharto's hard-line henchmen, cronies and thugs will become obvious in the next few days.

Wiranto appealed for restraint last week and called the anti-government protests "destructive and on the verge of anarchy." He also asked the country's Commission on Human Rights to join the military in investigating the shootings of the students.

Amien Rais, the head of Muhammadiyah, a 28-million strong Muslim grassroots organization who has been calling for Suharto's resignation for months, was skeptical of Suharto's sincerity.

"I don't believe the statement. It is just political cosmetics," Rais told the BBC. Indeed, most observers said the comment was a rhetorical one similar to others Suharto has made in the past while also saying he would only leave under consitutionally-mandated conditions, meaning at the end of his new five year term in 2003.

Speaking at a memorial service at Trisakti University for the slain students, Rais warned that the military had to choose between defending its commander and his billionaire family or the Indonesian people.

"The Army wear uniforms bought by the people. They must defend the people," he said.

Rais, who heads a movement of 28 million people, also told the students their colleagues "have been killed like dogs ... this is a crime against humanity." The students responded with shouts of "resign, resign" directed to Suharto.

Across a Suharto family toll-road from the university where six students were killed by government troops Tuesday night, troops surrounded the Suharto family-invested Hotel Ciputra.

The troops fired blanks and rubber bullets (which can kill at distances of less than 150 feet) at waves of stone-throwing rioters -- who included dockworkers, the unemployed and taxi drivers as well as students, the South China Morning Post reported.

Stone-throwing students smashed the four-story plate glass windows of a Bank Bali branch, rushed inside and brought out papers and computers and set them on fire in the street.

The Post reported that one man was killed when his flaming truck crashed as he tried to ram it into a line of Marines in pink berets. Many others were injured from tear-gas and rubber bullets, the Post said.

The Associated Press reported that a small group of high school students were blocked from pushing toward the presidential palace, but were cheered on by a crowd which had gathered on the streets.

Also last week, nine ethnic Chinese died on Wednesday night when mobs set fire to a bar near their shops and homes. Skulls and charred bones were visible in the rubble as Friday dawned in Jakarta.

Although ethnic Chinese make up only 4 percent of Indonesia's population, they are said to control 80 percent of the nation's wealth and are resented by many other Indonesians. The Chinese frequently have been targeted by mobs since the problems began in February.