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Military assault and riots in Solo

In recent months, anyone travelling through Indonesia would unavoidably be drawn into the events that have come into the international spotlight news after a long struggle of the people.

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My travels unexpectedly ended in Solo, a city 12 hours by train from Jakarta, in the days leading up to the resignation of President Suharto. While the world watched the rioting and destruction in Jakarta, other crucial events had been unfolding virtually unnoticed.

On Friday, May 8, at the University Sebelas Maret in Solo, 10,000 students demonstrated peacefully, calling for reform and the stepping down of Suharto. On this day students obtained permission from the commander of the military to go out onto the streets.

The group that emerged was promptly surrounded by military, who began beating the students and who fired without warning, a violation of their code of conduct. This was followed by continued calls of “Attack!” by military police as students scrambled back to campus, an area designated as a military-free zone.

Official interviews with the military point out that rubber bullets are not fatal when used at a range of 25-50m. Eyewitness accounts of this day indicate that the required distance was violated.

The military moved onto campus grounds to continue their attack, described by students as “like a war zone”. On this day, 400 students were received at the hospital, four were killed, nine are still missing, and countless others are in critical condition. This senseless tragedy did not make the newspapers in Solo, much less the international media, occurring five days before the deaths of six student activists at Trisakti University in Jakarta.

These demonstrations have been occurring on campuses across Indonesia, the demonstrators increasing in number and determination as it became clear that the regime had no interest in solving the country's economic crisis beyond protecting Suharto's elite circle of cronies and their personal wealth.

Initially the students' main concerns were the cabinet appointed by Suharto soon after the March 11 “elections”, including his daughter “Tutut” and a range of business cronies and corrupt bureaucrats.

Another concern throughout his rule had been Suharto's extraordinary wealth, estimated at $40 billion plus and obtained at the expense of the Indonesian people. Suharto's earlier promises of reform to begin in the year 2003 were unacceptable to the students.

In the midst of mass arrests, disappearances and kidnappings, and ignoring military threats and intimidation tactics that included night interrogations at activists' homes, students continued to take to the streets. As one student commented, “We must speak. Who else will speak?”

Around the time of the March 11 elections, other members of the community had begun to speak. In an incident in Jakarta, four mothers were jailed for protesting against increases in the price of milk, now unaffordable for their children.

In the following months, people became frustrated by soaring unemployment and inadequate food supplies. A main catalyst for their support of the student demonstrations was the IMF-imposed May 4 increases of up to 70% in petrol prices, which inflated transportation costs, electricity and the costs of daily cooking to a point that people simply could not afford these commodities at all.

On the streets, I heard many stories from families struck by unemployment now unable to buy milk for their children and who were struggling to afford food, now made even more scarce by panic buying of the elite classes.

Another component that added to the volatility of Solo was the strained relationships between the ethnic Chinese and the “asli” or native Javanese people. There is a history of misunderstandings between these groups, cleverly manipulated by the regime to divert attention from its own failure to improve the economy and the unimaginable corruption and wealth of Suharto, his family, his friends and ABRI (the armed forces).

An example of this scapegoating was the reintroduction of the subversion law for hoarding food during the food riots in which ethnic Chinese were targeted. The armed forces have done little to protect Chinese-Indonesian shops. The Chinese business community has suffered greatly from this tactic.

The combination of these many factors and the long pent-up emotions became explosive. Social, economic and political injustices pushed people to desperation. As one Indonesian expressed it, “We have nothing left to lose”.

On May 14, after a deceptively peaceful wander through the streets of Solo, a city long known as a political barometer for the rest of Indonesia, I saw anger and frustrations come to the surface.

By 3.30 that afternoon, there were at least eight fires in the vicinity of the hostel. I could hear the smashing of glass, overturning and destruction of cars, gunshots and the loud cheering of crowds in the streets. Great flames licked into the air, engulfing a nearby shopping mall and smearing dense inky clouds of black across the sky.

The surrounding alleyways, leading to neighbourhoods, were quickly blocked off in the fear that the emotional mobs would enter the area of small traditional homes known as kampungs. For two nights, resident vigilante squads kept a 24-hour watch to protect their homes.

Meanwhile, for two days department stores, car and motorcycle dealerships, bus stations, warehouses, factories, banks, Chinese-owned stores and homes, rich neighbourhoods, the government-owned TV station and whole streets were set on fire, looted and destroyed.

The first afternoon, the entire sky was black with smoke from the raging fires, which by evening cast an orange glow onto the horizon encircling the city.

The electricity was out for the first night in most of the city. By 2am a horrible silence had descended on the surrounding neighbourhoods. I wandered out to the main road, eerie and still in the aftermath, ashes still lingering in the air and clinging to my nostrils in a disturbing mix of burned rubber and wreckage.

Cars were upturned every 10 metres and still burning into the blackness of the night, a heavy curtain of smoke obscuring the lines of charred stores. Beams of light crossed over them from military vehicles enforcing an 8pm to 6am curfew. It was like wandering into a surrealist nightmare.

It is important to emphasise that the riots were not started or carried out by students, but began with poor workers and unemployed calling for change. Their actions revealed a deep-rooted anger brought on by the economic crisis and the frustration of 32 years of oppression, poverty and corruption.

My departure from Solo was also a first viewing of the full extent of the damage. The streets were littered with broken glass and overturned vehicles amidst graffiti and hundreds of banners calling for reforms. The more affluent area around the post office was still heavily guarded by the military, although remaining areas and streets were charred black and destroyed, the dismal skeletons of stores set against the first light of morning in an indescribable bleakness that descended over the entire city.

More than 50,000 people lost their jobs in these few days, a consequence that in weeks to come will bring further hardship to families unable to buy food even before the fires.

On May 21, as Suharto's resignation was televised across Indonesia, there was a sense of disbelief that stretched beyond the dreams of only a week before. However, the political situation is changing by the moment, and the future path to democracy is still an uncertainty.

A comment made to me in March by a Javanese student rings more clearly now. He said, “We won't stop protesting as long as there are still injustices”. In light of the questionable government now led by Habibie, and the already proven power of a people's movement that single-handedly toppled Suharto, perhaps the international community, before blindly supporting the new government, should listen more closely to the voices of Indonesians that began to surface in the demonstrations that began many months ago.

I hope that their stories will be heard; they are the people who with their hope, courage and determination have truly inspired me.