6 Students in Jakarta Protest Killed by Police

Six students were killed--shot in the back and head, doctors said--and about 20 were wounded Tuesday when police opened fire on protesters calling for the end of President Suharto’s rule.

It was the most serious incident since student demonstrations, most of them peaceful, began three months ago on campuses throughout Indonesia.

The deaths are likely to rally more public support to students who are demanding democracy and political reform in this once-prosperous nation, which has been plunged into dire fiscal straits and political tumult by the Asian economic crisis.

“We didn’t do anything when all of a sudden the police started shooting,” said Nino Oktorino, 19, a student at Trisakti University in west Jakarta. “We were just trying to get back on campus.”

Wailing parents converged on Sumbur Hospital, where the dead and wounded were carried by students and in ambulances and taxis. A mother bent over the body of Elang Lesmana, 20, and cried, “Elang, Elang! You told me you were just going to your midterm exams.”

Jakarta reacted with shock, but--at least initially--not outrage. Night traffic thinned noticeably in this city of 10 million, and restaurants and shopping malls were all but deserted.

“At some point, something like this was bound to happen,” said an Indonesian businessman. That it happened in Jakarta--the capital and home of international investors, embassies and visiting journalists--only served to heighten the probable repercussions.

Regardless of where culpability is affixed, the killings are likely to put the military on the defensive and increase pressure on Suharto. They also are likely to cause international donors and lenders to reexamine their assistance to Indonesia, and human rights organizations to call for condemnation of the Suharto regime.

Amnesty International on Tuesday said from London that the campus killings showed the Indonesian government’s “contempt for human life” and called on officials to show greater restraint.

Many details surrounding the killings were unclear. But the students, numbering about 5,000, had gathered on the campus of the private, upscale Christian institution and, apparently against the advice of some leaders, had left the university about noon, converging on the streets, where they blocked traffic and listened to speeches.

Headed back toward the campus in late afternoon, they broke into a run when police wearing full riot gear charged, witnesses said. At least two of the victims were shot and died on the steps of the administration building, well within the campus perimeter. Others who fell behind in the rush for the “safety” of the university were beaten with truncheons.

It is not known what provoked the police or who gave the order to fire. But there were reports that authorities began firing on students after they began beating up an undercover intelligence officer sent to spy on them.

A military spokesman said security forces do not use live ammunition in a civil disturbance, though many unspent cartridges were found on the ground. Normally in such circumstances, the military uses “rubber” bullets. These, however, can be fatal when fired at a target less than 150 yards away.

“This is a very cruel and very sad incident,” said Mudanton Murtejo, the university rector. “It just makes me very angry. I will protest to the chief of police and the minister of defense and maybe to the Human Rights Commission.”

Since the protests began, military leaders have said the students could protest on their schools’ grounds but that unruly off-campus demonstrations would not be tolerated. Security forces generally have not entered the colleges, even when Suharto was hanged in effigy.

“The campus standoff allowed both sides to play their roles,” said Marzuki Darusman of the National Commission on Human Rights. “It enabled the students to voice their demands without having to take real action and the military to appear tolerant without surrendering control.”

There had been big, sometimes rough protests in other parts of Indonesia, especially in the regional capital of Medan, where local media had reported as many as half a dozen deaths in some incidents. In recent days, though, the protests have intensified at dozens of universities.

The spark was a huge increase last week in the price of fuel, cooking gas and electricity caused by the government’s slashing of its subsidies for those commodities, as called for under the multibillion-dollar international bailout of this country. The price increase prompted criticism from even the normally docile People’s Representation Council, the legislature.

“I think the students are really getting impatient,” Mely Tan, a university sociologist, said Tuesday before the fatal confrontation. “Their support is growing, but our fear is that if they go off campus, things can get out of control.”

Although nonstudents have been reluctant to join the demonstrations, the protesters have won support this week from an increasing number of religious, labor and academic groups, all of whom are alarmed by Indonesia’s economic crisis and weary of Suharto’s authoritarian, 32-year rule.

On Monday, a group of retired generals even voiced its support for the students and appealed to army forces to join the movement for political reform. Like most other Indonesians, they stopped short of calling for Suharto’s overthrow.

“We the people should not let the state leaders, who have failed to perform their duties well, continue their service,” retired Lt. Gen. Solichin, the group’s spokesman, said. “All parties . . . have to persuade the armed forces leaders to support the student movement.”

At the same time, Amien Rais, a prominent opposition leader and chairman of a Muslim organization with 28 million members, said he was forming a “people’s leadership team” that would unite various groups demanding political reform.

“Water stagnates in a sewer--that’s how we are in Indonesia now,” he told a rally. “Being stagnant like that, the water only collects disease. That’s why it has to flow.”

Suharto, who is in Egypt on an official trip, had urged students before leaving to end their protests and await political reforms--which he earlier had said could not be made until the end of his term in 2003. A retired general himself, Suharto also said civil unrest would not be tolerated.