Mobs take to streets in orgy of looting

INDONESIA IN TRANSITION

Scenes in Jakarta and in other predominantly Chinese domains arereminiscent of the country’s worst violence in 30 years in May.

MORE than 100 army personnel from Jakarta’s military command were holed up for some time in a five-storey shopping mall yesterday after one of them accidently shot and injured a Marine during a looting spree by mobs in central Jakarta’s Senen district.

The scenes there and in other predominantly Chinese domains were reminiscent of the country’s worst violence in 30 years in May, when hundreds of shops were torched and looted.

In the particular incident involving the Marines and other soldiers yesterday, looters reacted to the shooting and started throwing rocks at the building where the soldiers had taken refuge.

Said Marine Lance-Corporal Eko S.: “Maybe they are embarrassed about the shooting. But they could also be frightened of what the masses would do to them.”

Shattered glass, rocks and shredded paper were strewn across a wide stretch of the area and a few hundred metres away, a branch of the Finance Department was attacked.

Troops had been deployed after mobs took to the streets and looted in several parts of the capital attacking shopping centres, setting fire to houses and goods and, in cases, pelting ethnic Chinese-owned shops and businesses with rocks.

Many later milled about on the streets, vandalising street lighting and setting light to armoured cars.

The violence in Senen lasted about six hours and even though the mob rule appeared widespread, soldiers maintained that it was small-scale.

Chinese men, women and children stood silently at the entrances to their streets in front of makeshift wooden barricades, mounting a vigil as mobs rampaged past. In some areas, they armed themselves with sharpened metal poles.

“All we can do is stand here and wait,” said one man standing with his wife and two daughters.

As helicopters clattered overhead, Chinese residents hastily erected blockades of empty petrol drums, boards and pieces of corrugated iron, trying to block off residential alleyways.

One trader was dragged from his shop and thrown into a canal by a mob. His shop was looted, while soldiers pulled him to safety from the water.

In many areas, security forces were nowhere to be seen and the streets were ruled by the mobs.

“This has got out of our control,” one report here quoted University of Indonesia student Herman as saying. “This is out of everyone’s control now.”

Intelligence sources expect the problems to worsen over the weekend.