INDONESIA: RIOT POLICE CLASH WITH ANTI GOVERNMENT PROTESTERS

(12 May 1998) Natural Sound
Riot police fired into a crowd of student protesters in Indonesia's capital on Tuesday as anti-government demonstrations intensified around the country.
Doctors at a Jakarta hospital and diplomats say up to five students had been killed and "many" wounded.
Violence also flared in the city of Bandung where riot police dispersed protesters by firing in the air and beating them with batons.
Defying orders to stay on their campuses, about 600 students tried to take their protest to the streets of Bandung, 75 miles (120 kilometres) east of Jakarta.
They were stopped by a line of about 500 anti-riot police.
During the standoff, the students sang the national anthem and demanded the removal of President Suharto.
As the students tried to leave the campus, clashes erupted.
Police at first tried to push back the protesters with their shields.
But violence flared as they charged the student line, firing plastic bullets into the air and beating the fleeing students with wooden batons.
Five people had to be rushed to a nearby hospital, including a female student and a taxi-driver caught in the middle of the clashes.
Riots also erupted in the country's capital, Jakarta.
Here, about five-thousand students defied the government and burst through fences at the Trisakti University in the city centre.
As the students held their protests and blocked city streets, police were at first content to stand back and watch.
At one point - to the cheers of her colleagues - a female protester handed out roses to the security forces.
But then violence broke out.
The police charged the students, chasing them through the streets and firing several shots into the air and at least 10 rounds into the crowd.
Doctors at a Jakarta hospital said "many were" wounded in the clashes - and that up to five students were killed.
Diplomats are also putting the number of dead at five.
Students across the country have been staging months of demonstrations calling for the end of Suharto's 32 year rule.
Now their ranks have been swelled with ordinary people who have been hit hard by the recent austerity measures imposed by the government.
Indonesia has been the worst hit by Asia's financial crisis.
And President Suharto - the region's longest-serving ruler - has proven unable to reverse the slide.
The Indonesia ruler is currently in Egypt attending a meeting of the G-15 developing countries.
He has said preparations for political reform could begin immediately, but implementation of most of them would have to wait until the end of his seventh five-year term in 2003.
But the protesters want changes now.

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