Indonesian Protesters Riot After Raid

An army and police assault on crowds of pro-democracy protesters triggered massive rioting here Saturday, hours after a bloody dawn raid by police and civilian toughs who took control of an opposition headquarters building.

As smoke rose Saturday evening from fires that were gutting buildings in one part of the city, it was unclear how long it would take for the military-backed government to reassert full control. Early estimates and rumors of how many died, if any, varied widely, but it appeared likely that at least some protesters and one fire victim were dead.

“It’s hard to tell if we’re at critical mass,” said a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Obviously, this is big.”

Further complicating the situation were unconfirmed reports that President Suharto, 75, who suffers from heart and kidney problems, checked into a hospital Friday afternoon. There were also indications that soldiers are divided over the use of force against the pro-democracy movement, which has grown dramatically in the last six weeks.

Armored personnel carriers, vehicles firing red-dyed water, truckloads of soldiers and police armed with batons charged in the early afternoon against about 10,000 demonstrators. The crowd had been largely peaceful, although some had thrown rocks and bottles at police and others reportedly tried to break through police lines. Most of the protesters had been listening to anti-government speeches in a street near the opposition headquarters building.

After police and soldiers moved to disperse the crowd, protesters threw Molotov cocktails, setting some vehicles on fire, and then moved into an elite district of homes and offices. Rioters torched two state banks, a private bank, the army women’s command, two car showrooms and a nine-story building used by the Agriculture Department. The destruction took place mainly along a 1.5-mile stretch of a major thoroughfare.

Developments are “moving pretty fast right now,” the Western diplomat said early Saturday evening. “We seem to be getting accounts that some of the buildings being burned are selectively targeted, and they may be targeted on the basis of their importance to the family.” He was referring to Suharto’s family, which is very prominent in business here, including the car industry.

Events could erupt into much more serious conflict, the diplomat said. “If you begin to see serious splits in the military, people coming in from outside Jakarta [to support the pro-democracy forces] . . . there are all sorts of things that could shift this thing to where the central government would not have prospects of gaining control,” he said.

The crowd’s anger was stoked in part by unconfirmed rumors that people had been beaten to death during the morning takeover of the headquarters of the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), where supporters had been camped out for weeks.

Reuters news agency said the independent Legal Aid Foundation, which has been sympathetic to the opposition camp, estimated that seven people died in the storming of the party headquarters and 74 had been detained by police. Reuters also reported that one man died from a fall after climbing out a window to escape a fire in the government’s EXIM (Export-Import) Bank.

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The predominant mood of the crowd as the rioting began was one of profound disappointment rather than hope.

“Democracy in Indonesia is dead,” said one man.

“The government has the army, and the army doesn’t care about the people,” said another.

“They [the army] want to make it like another Burma,” said a third. “It’s going to happen.” The military leaders of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, have been widely condemned for their human rights record.

“They are our army,” said another man. “They are supposed to protect us. But today is different. . . . With our political system, there is no hope at all.”

The confrontation has been building since opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, 49, was ousted last month as the party’s leader by a government-backed faction at a special congress she insists was illegal. Megawati is the eldest daughter of former President Sukarno, Indonesia’s national independence hero.

Hundreds of her supporters had remained at the party headquarters every night since late June to prevent it from falling into the rival faction’s hands while she pressed a court battle to retain her post.

Suharto pushed Sukarno out of power during a murky series of events in 1965 and 1966, which included an alleged Communist coup attempt in which seven top military officers were killed and a bloody backlash of nationwide rioting in which an estimated 300,000 suspected Communists or Communist sympathizers and ethnic Chinese were slain by mobs. Suharto has held power ever since.

Many observers believe that the move to oust Megawati from the party chairmanship was triggered by the government’s fear that she might have too much influence during the next presidential election, in 1998, even though that process is highly controlled.

There was speculation that the move to oust Megawati’s supporters from the party headquarters may have been timed to take advantage of a holiday today honoring the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth, when most newspapers do not publish.

Also, the army presumably had held off from attacking during regional meetings here last week attended by foreign ministers of Southeast Asian countries and major world powers, including U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Military suppression of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement was a major issue at those meetings.

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A U.S. Embassy statement issued Saturday said its personnel “observed the attack and seizure of the PDI headquarters . . . by elements supporting the rival PDI leader Surjadi, assisted by the police. Our officers witnessed a significant number of casualties among the Megawati supporters occupying the headquarters.

“We regret the use of violence to end what had been a peaceful assembly,” the statement continued.

It appeared that the injuries among Megawati supporters in the headquarters building were primarily inflicted by beatings from people not in uniform who were said to be Surjadi supporters.

A top Muslim leader, Abdul Rahman Wahid, a highly respected moderate who supports Megawati but also has ties to Suharto, told The Times early Saturday afternoon that military commanders have been split in recent days over whether to use force against Megawati’s supporters.

Wahid, head of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Muslim organization, said he had been informed that the 500 army soldiers who backed up the morning assault on the party headquarters had been trucked in from Bandung, the key city of the West Java area, under orders of army commander Feisal Tanjung. This was because Jakarta military district commander Maj. Gen. Sutiyoso had been “at least reluctant to use force,” Wahid said.

Wahid also said that Suharto entered a hospital Friday afternoon and that he would probably be there for a few days.

“He has an enlarged heart,” Wahid said. “Maybe he was tired more than anything. He’s still in control of his physical faculties.”

Wahid, who spoke before the afternoon rioting, said he believes Suharto will eventually mobilize other army support against Tanjung and remove him from his post.

“It is a fait accompli to the president, and he never allows people to have a fait accompli against him,” Wahid said.