Indonesia: Students, Workers Back in the Streets/WW Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 26, 1998 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- STUDENTS, WORKERS IN THE STREETS: INDONESIA MILITARY TRIES TO CRUSH PROTESTS By Andy McInerney For the second time in six months, hundreds of thousands of students and workers have taken to the streets in cities across Indonesia, battling the military and riot police. Last May, mass protests by students and workers forced the Indonesian ruling class and its imperialist backers to dump dictator Suharto, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for over 30 years. Now, broad sectors of Indonesia's 220 million people have their sights set on Suharto's heir and former ally, President B.J. Habibie. The heart of the current struggle is the shape of the post-Suharto government in Indonesia. After Suharto was pushed aside, Habibie and his main military backer, Gen. Wiranto, set out to form a government based on the Suharto state apparatus, minus some of the most glaringly corrupt and dictatorial aspects. They convoked a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) on Nov. 10 to set out a timetable for reform. The MPR has a thousand members. Five hundred seventy-five of them are appointed by the president. Under the Suharto regime, the body met every five years to approve nominations for president and vice-president. While the MPR's special session promised reforms, few believed its promises wre credible. Opposition leaders charged that the body had no representation from any of the popular forces that formed the social base of the anti- Suharto movement in May, and was filled instead with Suharto appointees. The MPR session became a lightning rod for protests. Even before its opening meeting, students rallied across the country under the slogan "Reject the MPR special session." Every day in Jakarta, thousands of students faced off against 50,000 soldiers and police and 125,000 paramilitary forces armed with bamboo spears. The military issued stern warnings to at least 50 groups that planned to mobilize for the protests. "If there are still groups in the community who want to disrupt the session, they are not democratic," Wiranto warned on Nov. 5. "The ABRI [armed forces] will get tough with them." On Nov. 12, the military acted on those threats. As a student demonstration wound through the streets of Jakarta toward parliament, the crowd swelled to 150,000 workers and other Jakarta residents. When the mass march attempted to push through a police cordon around the parliament building, the military fired into the crowd with live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas. Tanks plowed into the crowd. The military onslaught brought thousands more Jakarta residents into the streets. They battled the military with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Troops killed at least six people and wounded hundreds in pitched battles. The military shootings--at least three separate incidents- -provoked an outpouring of popular hatred against the government. For two days, masses of people ransacked stores and wealthy homes. Protests broke out in 16 cities on virtually every major island in the archipelago. Demonstrators demanded Wiranto's resignation. Students in Medan, on the island of Sumatra, took over airports on Nov. 14--one day after a similar action on the island of Sulawesi. After a weekend of widespread looting and clashes with the armed forces, Habibie tightened his grip while he promised speedier elections. On Nov. 15 and 16, several opposition leaders were arrested on charges of "subversion." Habibie publicly thanked Wiranto for the military's role in putting down the latest demonstrations. He said, "I have given him instructions to take firm action in line with existing laws." ALL CLASSES IN MOTION Beneath the surface of the mass protest against Habibie, a much broader struggle is shaping up over which class will lead the world's fourth most populous country out of 33 years of dictatorship--and out of the economic crisis that is ravaging Indonesia. On the eve of the MPR special session, four main bourgeois opposition leaders--Megawati Sukarnoputri, Amien Rais, Abdurrahman Wahid and Sultan Hamengkubuwono--issued an eight-point statement. They called for modest reforms including early elections, for removing the military from politics, and for investigation into Suharto's wealth. Since the protests that ousted Suharto, these figures have postured as democratic forces while trying to restrain independent action by the workers and poor. Rais, a leader of the second-biggest Muslim organization in Indonesia, has formed the National Mandate Party (PAN). He is widely believed to be vying for the presidency in 1999. He called on members of his party to stay away from the anti-MPR demonstrations. "The dilemma of people like me is that supporting [the MPR] would only give legitimacy to Habibie," he said on Nov. 6. "If we join forces to foil the session, maybe the consequences will be even worse." The Nov. 16 Australian Financial Review reported that a large group of former marines had joined Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). Some elements in the student movement view the marines, who are closer to the working class than the elite Strategic Reserve, sympathetically. The leftist People's Democratic Party (PRD) blasted the moderate politicians. "The statement gives us nothing and is out of step with the people's demands," charged PRD Central Leadership Council Chair Faisal Reza. "Their statement legitimizes the MPR, which is made of Suharto appointees." The main force propelling the drive against first Suharto and now Habibie are the students from state, private and religious universities. College students are relatively privileged in Indonesia. Many of those in the movement to oust Suharto were children of the military and economic elite. Nevertheless, the student movement has become more radical. In May, most student groups voted not to appeal to workers. In the November protests, motions to appeal to the workers passed overwhelmingly. Suharto's genocidal massacre of over 1 million communists and leftists in 1965 nearly annihilated working-class parties. But groups like the PRD and the Workers Committee for Reformation Action (KOBAR) that orient toward the factories, neighborhoods and fields are growing and gaining experience in the current wave of mobilizations. Peasant farmers in Lampung, South Sumatra have already formed a representative Peasants Council, according to a Nov. 11 Info-Pembebasan report. Similar committees have been formed in the village of Wonogiri, Central Java. The economic crisis that began in Indonesia in 1997 continues to bite. A Nov. 6 survey by the Indonesian government showed that one-third of electronics, machine and chemical concerns have been forced into temporary shutdown. Layoffs are rampant. Prices of basic goods like rice have skyrocketed. "We support the students from behind," one young worker told the Sydney Morning Herald on Nov. 16. "Habibie has failed to solve the economic crisis, many of us don't have jobs and our life is very difficult. Habibie is just a puppet of Suharto." The political instability atop the economic crisis has caused great concern in the new Indonesian upper circles. "Reforms can turn into revolution," warned Gen. Wiranto on Nov. 6. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. 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