President Suharto’s security forces finally made brutal reality Tuesday out of his threats to crush growing unrest, firing into a crowd of student protesters and killing six students.
At least 16 other people were wounded, some seriously in the incident in the capital. It was by far the toughest police action yet in weeks of intensifying protests sparked by the worst economic crisis of Suharto’s 32-year rule.
Witnesses said officers fired continuously for several minutes–first rubber bullets, then live ammunition–after students beat up an undercover intelligence agent sent to spy on them. An intelligence agent recently was beaten to death by students at a similar college protest in the nearby city of Bogor.
Some of Tuesday’s victims were hit as they tried to scramble back to the grounds of Trisakti University through clouds of tear gas.
“The police went crazy. They beat us up. They chased everybody while others were firing,” said Iwan Karimun, an economics student.
The killings were likely to set off a backlash against the 76-year-old leader, whom much of the nation holds accountable for soaring prices and joblessness.
So far, the retired five-star army general, now attending an international conference in Egypt, has resisted pressure at home and abroad for democratic reform.
In Washington, the Clinton administration said Indonesia needs to undergo “political reform” if it is to have any hope of regaining stability. It was the first public insistence by the U.S. that Suharto loosen his iron grip.
But the White House has decided not to make those reforms a condition for continued U.S. support for economic aid to the country. The official said “the aid is overwhelmingly humanitarian, and we believe it is in the interest of the Indonesian people that we go ahead with those programs.”
The police and military confirmed the death and injury tolls at a news conference early Wednesday.
Jakarta’s police chief, Maj. Gen. Hamani Nata, said each riot officer was to be issued only 20 blank and 20 rubber bullets, which can be lethal at up to 130 feet.
However, student leaders later collected what they said were spent casings from live bullets.
Nata said nothing directly about the use of live ammunition but said an investigation had been launched.
Distraught students said the violence broke out after riot police skirmished with protesters who had left their campus and blocked a busy road.
Hundreds of police surrounded the Trisakti campus after nightfall as grieving family members identified the dead at the Sumber Waras Hospital morgue.
Student leaders in Jakarta and other cities vowed large-scale protests in response to Tuesday’s bloodshed. Earlier in the day, police clubbed protesters during a face-off between 600 demonstrators and about 500 riot police in Bandung, a tourist destination about 75 miles east of the capital.
The nationwide protests have grown markedly in the last week, with other Indonesians joining students and students extending their protests off-campus. The impetus for surge of anger was the government’s decision last week to do away with subsidies on gas, transport and electricity.
The measures were demanded by the International Monetary Fund, which is threatening to pull back billions of dollars in loans aimed at restoring Indonesia’s economic health.
Indonesia has been the hardest-hit by Asia’s financial crisis, and Suharto has proven unable to reverse the slide.
International human rights groups have long accused Suharto of using excessive force to stamp out periodic anti-government uprisings.
As Indonesia in recent decades has joined the ranks of Asia’s economic dynamos, the government has jailed many of its critics.
The rights groups have singled out the military’s record in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony that Indonesia invaded in 1975 and annexed a year later, as especially grievous.
