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By Bronwyn Curran JAKARTA (AFP) - Student reformers who helped topple former Indonesian president Suharto two years ago reacted with anger and disgust Thursday at his failure to show up for the start of his corruption trial. "This is a show trial," yelled one student leader, to the cheers of the 200 protestors who had gathered outside the iron gates of the ministry building where the trial opened with the defendant's chair empty. "We will continue to push for a trial by the people ... not like the trial we saw today, which is a farce," said a spokesperson for the City Forum, an umbrella student group. "In the coming days we'll take to the streets in huge numbers and target buildings that are symbolic of Suharto's power." "We are extremely worried and pessimistic, especially as the man who sits as president in this country has promised to pardon Suharto," the protestor said of President Abdurrahman's Wahid pledge to pardon the former leader. "Please put on a real trial, not a soap opera," shouted another student demonstrator as unseasonal heavy rain drenched the increasingly angry crowd of students, but failed to drive them away. "Because if there's no real trial, the people will take justice into their own hands," he threatened. It was Indonesia's students who helped bring the seemingly invincible Suharto to his knees in May 1998 with mass street protests and a non-stop sit-in of parliament. Many of the same students were outside the court Thursday in the hope of seeing the process they began brought to its climax. But some among them said they were beginning to be reminded of the former tyrant's invincibility. "This shows Suharto is still untouchable," said Dede, who carried a banner that read "Try Suharto, Sick or Not!" Near him, Ria, another veteran of the 1998 protests, said she was "extremely disappointed" at the judge's decision to postpone the trial for another two weeks until September 14. "I was full of optimism back then that Suharto would be brought to trial," she said. "I was even more optimistic when Gus Dur came to power," she said using President Wahid's nickname. "But now we are beginning to see the reality, that the court system is full of Suharto's people." The anti-Suharto protesters came from three groups: the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Union, the Forum to Fight for the Supremacy of the Law, and the Students and People Love Reform Forum. "This trial is staged," Ria said in disgust on learning it had been postponed. "Staged" is what a small group of about 50 pro-Suharto protestors also branded the trial. The pro-Suharto group turned up outside the gates of the ministry in a dozen vans, and distributed leaflets reading: "Reject the trial of Suharto, try the present corruptors." "The Suharto trial is staged by the political elite who are in power now, who pretend to be reformist but are in fact just greedy for power," it said. The leaflets also called for a halt to investigations into those formerly in power. The sympathies of the thousands of onlookers peering through the iron bars, which surround the spacious ministry grounds, were divided towards the man who liked to be called the "father" of Indonesia's development. "I feel sorry for him, he's sick and old," said 59-year-old Muhammad, a vegetable seller who had traveled two hours by train from his home to witness the proceedings. Sardi, however, had limited pity. "For his illness, I pity him, but for all the things he's done wrong, I have no pity," said Sardi, 50. The anti-Suharto activists, who since Suharto's fall have staged countless demonstrations around Suharto's plush downtown residence demanding he be dragged to court, vowed to escalate their protests in the coming days. |
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