DATE=9/15/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDONESIA / PROTEST (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-253902
BYLINE=BRONWYN CURRAN
DATELINE=JAKARTA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Police in Jakarta have clashed with
demonstrators protesting military abuses in East
Timor. Bronwyn Curran reports from the
Indonesian capital, around two dozen people were
injured in the clashes.
TEXT: The violence began after around 80 people
from local human rights groups gathered across
the road from the United Nations headquarters in
Jakarta to protest the military violence in East
Timor.
After some two hours of speeches, the
demonstrators decided to march on the Defense
Ministry several blocks away, where military
commander General Wiranto has an office.
The demonstrators assembled behind a truck and
tried to ram their way through a blockade manned
by more than 100 anti-riot police. When the
commander of the police tried to remove the key
from the protesters' utility truck, the situation
became violent.
Ari Fariq Asid, one of the protest leaders, told
what happened next.
//ARI ACT//
We are already heading to Wiranto's office,
we are blocked the intersection, and we
make the orations the speech, something
like that, just trying to open the blockade
by the vehicle and the police is beating
and shooting at us.
//END ACT//
Angered protesters pushed harder against the
police lines. Police in turn beat them back with
sticks. Some of the demonstrators threw rocks at
the police in retaliation.
Police then opened fire with what they say were
rubber bullets and then chased those fleeing,
firing on them as they ran inside the city's main
department store.
//NAT SOUND OF SHOTS FIRED: ESTAB., FADE DOWN//
Ari Fariq Asid says between 25 and 30
demonstrators were injured. Four of them have
been hospitalized. Another eight were arrested.
The rest of the protesters dispersed after heavy
reinforcements of military police were brought
in.
Elsewhere in Jakarta, other protesters
demonstrating against East Timor's vote for
independence burned an independence flag outside
the British embassy, where rebel leader Xanana
Gusmao is sheltered. No violence was reported.
Jakarta has been volatile over the past 10 days,
with almost daily demonstrations against
perceived foreign interference in East Timor, and
a proposed new security law which would increase
the powers of Indonesia's military. (Signed)
NEB/BC/GC/KL
15-Sep-1999 11:04 AM EDT (15-Sep-1999 1504 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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