Student protests grow in Indonesia

Suharto's fall

Student protests, forums, hunger strikes and rallies against the Suharto regime have spread to universities, colleges and educational institutions across Indonesia in recent weeks. The demonstrations began among more privileged layers of students at the prestigious University of Indonesia during the sitting of the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) in early March. That body rubber-stam (...)

Protests defy Suharto’s repression	Suharto's fall

Indonesia is in political and social turmoil in the lead-up to next week’s meeting of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR). The country’s ageing military dictator General Suharto confidently expects the 1,000-member assembly, dominated by government appointees and ruling Golkar Party representatives, to rubber-stamp his nomination for a seventh five-year term as president. But the b (...)

Crackdown on students	Suharto's fall

The disappearance of a further 10 student activists in the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta is the latest sign of a growing campaign of repression aimed at intimidating students and suppressing protests against the Suharto regime. Lawyers from the Legal Aid Institute stated that the 10 students are still missing after Indonesian security forces attacked a demonstration in the city. The police a (...)

Six killed in rioting	Suharto's fall

A new wave of demonstrations and riots have erupted in several major cities across Indonesia in the last few days. They have been sparked by the slashing of government subsidies on food, fuel, electricity as part of the IMF bailout package agreement. On Monday, May 4 three days of rioting started in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra. Medan is a trading center of the rubber and palm-oil industrie (...)

Social unrest undermines regime	Suharto's fall

The Indonesian junta last weekend staged a huge military parade in the center of Jakarta in a bid to intimidate opposition groups and prevent further demonstrations against Suharto prior to the presidential election set for March 11 1998. Armed Forces Chief General Faisal Tanjung warned of "disturbances to national stability" in the form of "demonstrations, mass unrest and radicalism." (...)

Suharto agrees to IMF dictates	Suharto's fall

Following three weeks of tense negotiations with International Monetary Fund officials, the Suharto regime in Indonesia agreed last week to sign a revised package of economic measures, in return for the resumption of US$43 billion in emergency funding. A previous deal signed in January collapsed when the IMF suspended a US$3 billion payment to Indonesia due on March 15 1998, accusing Ja (...)

Students massacred	Suharto's fall

The murder of six student demonstrators Tuesday in Jakarta, deliberately shot down by riot police mobilized by the Suharto dictatorship, marks a new stage in the political crisis in Indonesia. The six young people died of bullet wounds when police opened fire on students who were peacefully demonstrating against price increases ordered by the IMF and against the military dictatorship which has rul (...)

Aussie media: Suharto stand aside	Suharto's fall

Expressing the economic and strategic interests of Australian capitalism--which has more than $10 billion in direct investments in Indonesia--daily newspaper editorials in Australia on Friday called on Suharto to stand down and make way for a new government that can restore order. While urging the Howard government to maintain its ties--including military ties--to the dictatorship that (...)

Tanks mobilised against protests	Suharto's fall

Tanks and armoured cars patrolled the streets and major intersections of Jakarta on Friday as 15,000 troops and riot police attempted to crush opposition to the Suharto regime after three days of intense protests and widespread looting. Soldiers were viciously beating demonstrators and looters despite the presence of international news crews. Suharto ordered the suppression in a desperate bid to c (...)

Political questions face the masses	Suharto's fall

Suharto has cut short his visit to Egypt to return to a country wracked by mass protest and rioting. With growing demands for his resignation not only from Indonesian students and workers, but also from elements within the economic elite at home and leading organs of international capital abroad, the continuation of Suharto's 32-year dictatorship is being called into question. It is, however, by n (...)

Blunt IMF warning to Suharto	Suharto's fall

In what appears to be a closely coordinated operation, the US administration and the International Monetary Fund have warned the Suharto regime in Indonesia to drop plans to peg the rupiah to the American dollar. First, US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin publicly condemned Suharto's plan to establish a "currency board" to administer a fixed exchange rate. Then the IMF threatened to destabilize wha (...)

US trains Indonesia torturers	Suharto's fall

The American military is training Indonesian special forces units which have been charged with torture and murder of civilians, according to a report which appeared Monday, March 16 in The Nation magazine. The training is continuing despite a congressional ban imposed in 1992 after reports of extensive human rights abuses in East Timor. Pentagon officials confirmed that US military pers (...)

Behind the Suharto-IMF conflict	Suharto's fall

The escalating confrontation between the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia and the International Monetary Fund has deep-rooted causes arising from a fundamental shift in the world economy. At the heart of the conflict are IMF demands for the complete restructuring of the Indonesian economy. Backed by the Clinton administration, the IMF compelled Suharto to sign a far-reaching deregulation agreemen (...)

Suharto pledges to quit, but not yet	Suharto's fall

In a speech to the nation on Tuesday morning, Indonesian dictator General Suharto refused to bow to demands for his resignation, but instead pledged to stand aside after an indefinite "transitional" period. Backed by military chiefs, Suharto declared he would use his presidential powers to establish a "reform council", reshuffle his cabinet and convene elections for a new national assembly to choo (...)

A political vacuum in Indonesia	Suharto's fall

For three decades, since coming to power in one of the bloodiest military coups of the 20th century, the Suharto regime has ruthlessly maintained its grip over Indonesia. Backed by the US, Australia and other capitalist powers, Suharto has suppressed opposition parties and media, rigged elections, and jailed and executed political opponents. In East Timor and Irian Jaya, the Indonesian military ha (...)

Cracks in the Suharto regime	Suharto's fall

The Suharto government has agreed to severe austerity measures after the International Monetary Fund threatened to withhold credits from its $33 billion package, sending the Indonesian rupiah and share prices plunging. General Suharto was forced to sign the IMF agreement on national television on January 15 with IMF chief Michel Camdessus looking over his shoulder. Suharto was told he had no choic (...)

Unrest in Indonesia	Suharto's fall

Plans by the Suharto regime for a voluntary three-month freeze on repayments of more than US$65 billion in private debt received a cool reception at a meeting of international bankers in Singapore on January 27 1998. Indonesia is seeking the largest restructuring of private debt in history. Two hundred twenty-eight companies are unable to meet their debt obligations as a result of the precipitous (...)

Protests defy Suharto’s repression	Suharto's fall

Student protests and rallies against the Indonesian military regime are continuing virtually daily across the country despite threats of severe repression and demands by President Suharto that students return to their studies. Students have become bolder, taking to the streets in a bid to involve workers and others hit by rising levels of inflation and unemployment. Riot police and army troops hav (...)

Rais tries to call off demonstrations	Suharto's fall

Amien Rais, a leader of the bourgeois opposition to the Suharto regime, this morning issued a last minute call for the cancellation of mass demonstrations planned by students and others against the dictatorship. Some student leaders, however, declared that marches would continue, defying tanks and heavily-armed troops. Rais, a US-backed political science professor and leader of a 28 million-member (...)

Which groups support the struggle?	Suharto's fall

As the political crisis in Indonesia intensifies and the Suharto regime maneuvers to hold onto power, it is crucial that the mass movement of students and workers not fall prey to the illusion that cosmetic changes in the power structure will signify genuine democratic and social renewal. Suharto's bloody dictatorship is not an aberration, nor is it simply an expression of the despotic tendencies (...)

Suharto resigns to preserve regime	Suharto's fall

In a desperate bid to defuse an intense political crisis, Indonesian dictator General Suharto has resigned and installed his hand-picked successor, vice president B. J. Habibie, as his replacement with the backing of the military high command. Habibie, one of Suharto's closest associates for more than two decades, was immediately sworn in for the rest of Suharto's five-year term -- through to the (...)

Demonstrations demanded fall	Suharto's fall

Despite calls by opposition leaders to stay at home, hundreds of thousands of students, workers and professional people defied a massive military mobilisation to join demonstrations in major Indonesian cities on Wednesday, demanding Suharto's immediate resignation. By mid-afternoon, more than 10,000 students had gathered in the grounds of the national assembly building, some arriving in buses from (...)

Habibie: New stage in crisis	Suharto's fall

The bid of Indonesia's military-controlled regime to preserve itself by installing as President B. J. Habibie, a life-long protege of Suharto, has only heightened the already volatile political and economic crisis, with none of the underlying issues resolved. Habibie's appointment is the latest in a series of manoeuvres by Suharto, the military, bourgeois opposition figures and internat (...)

Who is B.J. Habibie?	Suharto's fall

22 March 1998 Jusef Habibie, 61, sworn in yesterday as the new Indonesian president, is one of Suharto's most trusted and longstanding political lieutenants. Suharto has acted as Habibie's patron and sponsor since the 1950s, when he came to know the young man and his family during a military posting to the South Sulawesi. In 1954 Habibie was given a scholarship by the Ministry of (...)