Riots of Jakarta of May 1998

The May 13rd and 14th 1998 , of the riot S occurred with Jakarta, capital of Indonesia. Other riots took place with Surakarta (Java Centers) May 14th and 15th. Many stores belonging to of Indonésiens of Chinese origin were attacked and plundered. At the time of these riots, more than 1.200 people found death. The majority were people trapped in the fire of the shopping mall " Mega Mall" new city of Lippo Karawaci in the west of Jakarta. Among them, there is vait a great number of plunderers, come to benefit from the disorder caused by the attacks from stores.

These riots will bring to the resignation, on May 21st, 1998, of the president Soeharto, arrived at the capacity in 1966 in the tread of massacres which had made between 500.000 and 1 million deaths, and regularly re-elected since by a MPR (Parliament) cut to measure.

Several testimonys, collected in particular by a team of France 2, agree on the way in which these attacks and plunderings proceeded. The scenario was identical: a truck stops in front of a window. In go down from ten to twenty men equipped in an identical way, the close-cropped cut, in disciplined order. They start to attack the window. An assembly is formed. The group breaks the window and starts to extract some from the goods, while inviting crowd to make in the same way. This one ends up yielding and is devoted to plundering. The group goes up in the truck and disappears.

Testimonys on violences in particular could be collected by the members of a team of investigators formed and directed by the Father Jésuite Sandyawan Sumardi, who established 182 cases of collective rapes perpetrated by soldiers as a civilian within the framework of a campaign intended to terrorize Indonésiens of Chinese origin. The army and the government tried to discredit and intimidate the Father, without success. The authorities were finally forced to promise an official investigation. At the conclusion of this investigation, the government stated nevertheless not to hold an evidence of these rapes.

The Sandyawan Father had much evil to convince the opinion of these exactions. The evidence was difficult to collect because the victims of the rapes spoke only under condition about anonymity. Its task was not facilitated by faked photographs showing of the tortured Chinese women who circulated on Internet, which had caused the skepticism of certain personalities indonésiennes of Chinese origin towards the declarations of the victims.

Causes and circumstances

Since of month, of many demonstrations were held in various towns of Indonesia on the initiative of the students. The protest movement, in particular in student medium, starts to become extensive with confrontations with Medan, the big city of the north of Sumatra, in April 1998, opponent of the students to the police force. May 8th with Yogyakarta, university town of the center of Java, of the students express to ask for the resignation of Soeharto. Confrontations take place with the police force. A student, Moses Gatutkaca, die.

On Tuesday, May 12, 1998 bursts a shooting at the catholic university Tri Sakti in the west of Jakarta, occupied by the students, who protest within the framework of a movement growing of anger in front of the misery created by the monetary crisis, financial and economic, which burst in August 1997 with the rupiah and fall Jakarta Stock Exchange, the currency indonésienne. This one was exchanged at the rate of 2.500 rupiah for 1 US dollar before the crisis. In January 1998, it had fallen up to 17.000 rupiah for 1 dollar.

Six students are killed in the shooting of Sorting Sakti. Police officers stationed in front of the university. But the ballistic expertise showed that the weapon belonged to the arsenal of the Army.

The following day May 13rd, of first riots burst in front of the university. The rioters are not students. They try to involve those to leave the campus and to follow them. The students refuse. The rioters will then attack the stores of the district, whose owners are often of Chinese origin.

This day, the president Soeharto embarks for an official trip in Egypt.

The next day, on May 14th, around 10 hours of the morning, a first fire is declared in a district of the north of Jakarta. Approximately half an hour later, a second fire is declared, a little more in the south. All along the morning, to regular intervals, a new fire will be declared, each time a little more towards the south. The afternoon of this Thursday, Jakarta sinks in a climate of violence. The evening, the Wiranto general, chief of the armed forces, imposes the curfew.

In any Jakarta, the most insane rumors circulate. Most current of these rumors says that crowd of thousands of people attacks the districts, in particular residential. In the districts, the inhabitants organize themselves. Barricades are assembled at the entry of the streets of access. Rounds are carried out the night.

Soeharto returns on May 16th.

On Monday, May 18, of the thousands of students go to the Parliament to occupy it. Leaders of the opposition, with at the head Amien Ray, directing large Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, organized a demonstration monster for on May 20th. The day before at the evening the general Lieutenant Prabowo, son-in-law of Soeharto, meets Amien and disadvises to him holding this demonstration, envisaging a blood bath. The demonstration is cancelled.

May 20th at the evening, several ministers resign and go to Soeharto for him to advise to resign.

On Thursday, May 21, at 9 hours of the morning, Soeharto solemnly announces its resignation of the president's functions of the Republic. Its vice-president, B.J. Habibie, becomes automatically the new president.

In the night from May 22nd to 23rd, curious military operations proceed in Jakarta. It was told that tanks of Kostrad (strategic reserves of the Army indonésienne), whose commander is Prabowo, moved towards the Parliament, always occupied by the students. They would have been stopped by armoured tanks of the marine fusiliers, very popular since they refused to shoot at crowd at the time of the riots.

Many points of these events are for the moment still obscure. Some think that factions of the army would have liked to push with the declaration of the state of emergency to seize the power.

Context

These riots fit in a long chain of violences which mark the last years of the Soeharto mode.

An incident in particular will strike the spirits. In October 1995, a few hundreds of people gather in front of a supermarket of the town of Purwakarta, to approximately 100 km in the east of Jakarta. They came to protest against the treatment inflicted by the owner with a high-school girl who, arrived at the case to pay a bar of chocolate, had found her wallet empty. The young girl had then said that it would give the shelf to her place. The owner had not heard it this ear and, showing the high-school girl of flight, had forced it to wash the ground of the store and to clean the toilets, while insulting it in front of the other customers. This demonstration had quickly degenerated of attacks and plunderings of stores held by of Indonésiens of Chinese origin.

Violences of the end of the mode will not have only as targets the Chinese, but also the Christians. A catholic association estimates thus that for all the period of this mode, 535 was deteriorated or set fire to by crowd, whereas for the period of the former president Soekarno this number had been only of 4.

After the resignation of Soeharto, Indonesia will know other inter-ethnic violences and inter-nuns, without counting the mysterious murder of hundreds of Moslem religious leaders in Java East, stronghold of the large Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama directed by Abdurrahman Wahid, and violences which will follow the massive vote of the inhabitants of Eastern Timor in favor of independence in August 1999.

But, in addition to the referendum of Eastern Timor, the year 1999 will be also that of the first democratic elections since 1955.

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