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IAN WILLIAMS, ITN: The streets of Jakarta have descended into chaos. Rampaging mobs today brought the city to a standstill, unleashing a frenzy of violence. There were familiar targets: a car showroom owned by a son of the president and a government ministry run by one of his daughters, but mostly it was indiscriminate. Thousands of looters rampaged through shops and department stores taking away all they could carry. These weren't the students of recent protests. It seemed more like a violent and spontaneous backlash from Jakarta's poor.
They've seen President Suharto and his family grow rich. Now, the anger and resentment was boiled over. The dispossessed of Jakarta are picking the city shops clean. There were the usual beatings at the hands of the security forces, but a curious thing happened, demonstrating the ambiguity of the army's role. Soldiers and special forces arrived in numbers and with firepower not yet seen during this crisis, but they didn't shoot. In places they were welcomed by the mob and many returned that affection--this, the army that's kept President Suharto in power for 32 years, and will determine how longer he stays. Scenes like this will perhaps be more chilling to Suharto than the violence of recent days.
At the very least, the army seems far from united. The army chief continues to profess loyalty to the president but today said his soldiers would always act in the interests of the people. He also claimed the situation was under control--though that's not the way it looked on the street. There were estimates of up to 20 dead in today's violence, though that was impossible to verify, except in Chinatown, where the grizzly aftermath of mob attacks on ethnic Chinese traders was all too clear. President Suharto will return to a city resembling a war zone, a population in revolt and patrolled by a divided army. |
