Jakarta - At least five people were injured, two seriously, early yesterday when Indonesian riot police broke up a protest by hundreds of students demanding the President, Mr B.J. Habibie, step down and hand over power to a transitional authority.
Police, using tear gas and rattan sticks, chased and beat 250 protesters out of the national parliament compound before dawn, some 12 hours after they arrived there for an overnight vigil.
Protesters from the Forum Kota, which groups students from greater Jakarta universities, had planned to camp inside the complex overnight in the same ritual they had used to force former president Suharto to resign on May 21st. The students had earlier toppled a massive steel entrance gate to gather some 15 metres inside the national parliament compound. Police pushed them out with a wall of shields.
Reuters adds: An orgy of looting, arson and violence in which two people died in Indonesia's restive Aceh province last week was engineered by members of the Armed Forces (Abri), a human rights group said yesterday.