Indonesian student activist arrested

By Edi Budianto

JAKARTA -- A leading student activist, Nuku Suleiman, was arrested in the early hours of Friday, November 26 in the office of Yayasan Pijar, a Jakarta student organisation. He has been accused of distributing stickers which read: “Suharto is the mastermind of all disasters: SDSB, Nipah, Kaur Koneng, Dili, Tanjung Priok.”

The SDSB is the state lottery which has been a source of funds for the Suharto children and other bureaucrats. Nipah and Kaur Koneng were the locations of killings of villagers by the military. Dili refers to the massacre of November 12, 1991, and Tanjung Priok was the site of a massacre in Jakarta in 1984.

Nuku was arrested following a demonstration by several hundred people outside parliament during the meeting at which the social affairs minister finally announced the cancellation of the SDSB.

This was the latest in a campaign of mass demonstrations in many cities, some as large as 20,000. On November 10, several thousand demonstrated outside the Presidential Palace for the first time in 20 years.

The campaign has involved both militant Islamic and progressive student groups. The Islamic groups concentrated on the religious injunction against gambling while the progressive groups focused on the SDSB further impoverishing the poor and enriching those running the SDSB.

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