Jakarta in Crisis Shows 3 Distinct Faces to the World

There were at least three faces to this tense capital Wednesday as more than three decades of one-man rule under President Suharto entered the final act.

One face was Fortress Jakarta, the ring of barbed wire, tanks and army special forces surrounding the Indonesian national monument and the presidential palace.

The tanks and armored personnel carriers had moved into position around the sprawling Merdeka Square and national monument grounds in the predawn hours Wednesday after opposition groups demanding Suharto’s immediate resignation called for a giant demonstration there.

The protest was canceled at the last minute by Muslim opposition leader Amien Rais, who said he was warned by an unnamed general in the Indonesian army that it would lead to bloodshed if demonstrators pushed their point. But the massive government security preparations--including teams of fearsome Rottweilers, German shepherds and Doberman pinschers--gave the clear impression of a dying regime holing up against a last assault.

Then there was Rebel Jakarta, tens of thousands of university students who had seized control of the national parliament building and grounds near Olympic Stadium in the southern part of the capital.

This was a festive, youthfully defiant scene evocative of 1969 Berkeley or, more ominously, 1989 Tiananmen Square. “Suharto knows no shame!” a chorus of students, most wearing the brightly colored blazers of their universities, shouted from the steps of the turtle-shaped, green-roofed parliament building.

Other students ransacked the offices of the adjacent parliament secretariat, launching paper airplanes and confetti made from shredded government documents to cheering crowds below. Even a heavy rain that fell in the late afternoon did nothing to dampen the students’ playful, irreverent parliamentary takeover. On banners and posters, Suharto’s name was spelled often with a $ sign, to register the students’ rage over the layers of corruption that have built up during the former army general’s rule. “$uharto, You and Your Cronies Must Go,” read one banner.

Finally, there was devastated, still terrified Jakarta--found in the mostly ethnic Chinese area called Glodok in the old Dutch quarter of the central city where last Thursday wild mobs burned whole blocks of Chinese businesses and sent residents fleeing to hotels or, for those who could afford it, to Singapore and Australia.

Chang Njoet-Ma, 40, owner of a soap and cosmetic factory, said most of her relatives fled to Singapore. She stayed behind alone to mind the family business and look after the three family homes. “I was terrified,” she said, tentatively opening the metal shutters of her home when she saw a foreign reporter outside. “Today, everything seems OK. For tomorrow, I don’t know.”

As she spoke, sirens from fire engines wailed on nearby streets where Chinese businesses were torched and gutted. The only businesses spared in some areas were those owned by Muslims or pribumi (indigenous Indonesians), who marked their holdings with crude signs to protect them from the fate befalling Chinese neighbors.

“Even though I was born here,” Chang said bitterly, “I am not considered pribumi because I have a Chinese face.”

The mood in Jakarta, a sprawling port city of 10 million, seemed to be perfectly captured on this day by the headline in the Indonesian-language newspaper Terbit: “Jakarta, Calm but Tense.”

The students, for all their youthful enthusiasm, are preoccupied with dumping Suharto. “I’m still not convinced that Suharto will leave,” said Hendra Yolni, 21, a law student at Jakarta Islamic University. “I think he is afraid of being held responsible for what he has done.”

However, the students have made little effort to condemn what has been the shame of the anti-Suharto movement: the accompanying anti-Chinese riots and looting of Chinese-owned businesses. In the colorful sea of students gathered in the parliament square, there were very few Chinese faces.

But Kong Lim, 41, an ethnic Chinese owner of a printing business, said he understands the rage and even the actions of rioters who attacked Chinese businesses. He blames it on poverty and ignorance, and thinks the government ought to do something.

“I feel sorry for many Indonesians,” Lim said. “Their life is very difficult. We need to be fair with them and help them. If the government doesn’t support these poor people, the target will be the Chinese of Indonesia.”