Indonesian press: country 'on brink of abyss'

Police arrest a student durung the Jakarta riots

The Indonesian media has followed the escalating violence of recent days with growing alarm.

Government-owned radio broadcast an apology by Indonesia's army chief General Wiranto for the first student deaths in three months of anti-Suharto demonstrations across the country:

"As an individual and minister of defence and security and commander of the armed forces ... I express deep sorrow and concern over the death of several university students," Wiranto said.

Close to the abyss

In an editorial on Wednesday, the day after the shooting dead of six students by police, The Media Indonesia newspaper warned that the country had entered a "deadly" phase.

A defiant stance in the face of the riot police

"We never tire of warning that the reforms clamoured for in the streets are too costly and risky and likely to end in disaster, and the current situation has brought us to the brink of the abyss," it said.

"Our fears have been realised. The demonstrations have claimed lives among the students. We have entered a deadly phase of the overheated demands for reform."

The paper said those in power were "proud of their indifference", while the students were proud of their opposition. "We have all arrived at the edge of a chasm that we have dug ourselves."

World community responsible

Others were more inclined to blame foreigners for the current problems.

The crisis affecting the Indonesian currency, according to a report in the Bisnis Indonesia daily, was being made worse by a distrustful "wait-and-see attitude" on the part of the international community towards the government.

For the The Jakarta Post, the IMF was partly to blame for sparking the crisis, by "forcing" the government into liquidating a number of banks late last year.

"The liquidation policy terrified people, provoking a fear of financial loss" and leading to a climate of uncertainty, it said.

Other media reports accused foreign news coverage of exaggerating the crisis, presenting the situation as "hell for foreign tourists as well as foreign investors."

In this context, President Suharto's trip to Cairo in the midst of the crisis to attend a summit of the G-15 grouping was seen by the Media Indonesia daily as a counter-diplomacy measure to show the world that "Indonesia is not that bad after all."

Suharto's decision to attend the summit at such a time, said the paper, "shows a high degree of self-confidence."

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.