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Response to the Papernas solidarity appeal: Dozens arrested and wounded as police repress anti-fuel price rise actions
Political Committee of the Poor - May 23, 2008
[The following statement in English was edited slightly for readability, the original SMS message in Indonesian translated and the full names of organisations added where abbreviations only were used in the original – James Balowski.]
I would like to make a brief comment on the report made by Papernas on May 21 and also their solidarity appeal, as I was taking part in the protest action and wrote down a chronology. I also resume some facts reported by some activists involved in the 21 protest action.
1. The fact is that there was no crowd that reached up to 6,000 at 2 pm at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout and marched to the State Palace. Some activists also stated that there was no crowd of the people that stayed overnight in the Proclamation Monument. There were some GMNK (National Populist Student Movement) and LMND (Indonesian Student League for Democracy) students in the monument at about 11 am.
2. There were many groups that positioned themselves in front and near of the State Palace. Some of the groups were: Forkot (City Forum) who later left the palace after the clash with the police, FPR (People Struggle Front), the Jabotabek Student Council, the National Liberation Front (FPN) and KAMMI (Indonesian Muslim Students Action Front). Below is the SMS report from a FPN activist:
15:41:28: There were a number of points of mass action in the vicinity of the Palace. There were some 500 KAMMI protesters from the direction of Harmoni side-by-side with the ranks of FPN protesters. From the direction of Thamrin there were some 200 Political and Social Sciences Institute Student Action Committee. The FPR was holding its ground in front of the State Palace, surrounded by various other student groups, each remaining separate.
FAMRED – The Student Action Front for Reform and Democracy (part of the People's Challenge Alliance, FRM), LMND, GMNK, were among those who come later after the Jabotabek Student Council left the crowd. About 10-15 minutes after they arrived there was a clash with the police.
3. "Masses from FRM positioned themselves in the front line and the entire crowd chanted yells demanding the president to make a decree that nationalise oil, gas, and mining industry to meet domestic need for fuel."
This was not entirely true. The so called “entire crowd chanted yells bla bla bla” probably meant the FRM crowd only. And other crowds had their own yells (with some of them also having a nationalization content – I hardly even heard the FRM crowd chanted the nationalization at that time (because of the clash between FAMRED/FRM was a major event that can be understood by other crowd).
FAMRED especially, was heavily reported by the media because of the clash and the arrests – not because of their role in the whole crowd. This news claimed that FRM was a leading crowd in the May 21 protest action. I think it really a careless statement. FRM activist were less than 200. FPR at about 1,000, FPN about 3,000 and KAMMI around 500-700.
With this comment I also condemn the repressive action and the arrested of students by the state police. Together with other FPN organizations will give our solidarity, especially the legal aid by the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH-Jakarta), some of the joint member of FPN.
Zely Ariane for the Political Committee of the Poor (KPRM)
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