A distraught woman arrived yesterday at the gutted shopping mall in east Jakarta where middle-class Indonesians liked to while away weekend afternoons. Her children had returned from the mall on Thursday after it was burned by rioters. But her husband was missing. A Red Cross worker reached into a bag and showed her a hand and wrist with her husband's gold watch attached. She broke down and walked away. The full horror of the day of madness in Jakarta dawned on a stunned city yesterday after mobs burned and looted whole streets and shopping centres over a vast area in an uprising of the poor against President Suharto. The convulsion cost at least 131 lives, bringing the confirmed total for four days of violence in the Indonesian capital to 155 dead.
President Suharto, now under mounting pressure to step down (including it is rumoured from some generals in the armed forces), ordered action against "criminals and looters" within hours of his return from a visit to Egypt. The president also rescinded a deeply unpopular decree increasing fuel and electricity prices, imposed to satisfy the conditions of a $40 million IMF rescue package for the economy.
The Energy Minister, Mr Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, told parliament the prices of premium petrol, diesel and kerosene would be cut from midnight tonight, effectively demolishing the IMF agreement. An IMF team which was due to arrive in Jakarta at the weekend to review the rescue deal has postponed its visit due to the security situation.
The rioting and looting died down yesterday as armoured cars took up positions at strategic junctions in the city centre. Dozens of military vehicles surrounded the presidential palace. Four armoured vehicles with cannons took up positions where the prestigious Hyatt and Mandarin hotels are situated.
As the mayhem in the streets died down, a different kind of chaos developed at Jakarta airport as foreign residents and members of the Chinese minority rushed to the departure terminal seeking flights out of the country.
Many countries advised their nationals yesterday to get out of Indonesia, including Australia which has a 20,000 strong community. The US government chartered flights for those of its 12,000 citizens who could not get regular flights and wanted to leave. The US embassy told those flying out to gather at 3 a.m. this morning at specified locations with one bag each for transport to the airport.
Singapore Air increased its schedule to evacuate Singapore people and during the day special flights arrived from Finland and Japan to pick up expatriates, many of they key members of the international business community in Jakarta.
Most World Bank and IMF officials were also preparing to leave the country. British Airways last night flew a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to Indonesia to operate a relief shuttle service between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
Yesterday Jakarta residents, overwhelmed at the massive scale of the destruction, began cleaning up streets littered with burned out cars and other debris. A crowd of distraught relatives gathered at Sentral Klender plaza in east Jakarta, where 104 people were confirmed dead yesterday. Scores of people, many of them looters, had no way to escape when arsonists set the complex ablaze, leaving it a pile of concrete and charred wood.
With bodies burned beyond recognition the only way to establish how many died was to count heads, said a red Cross worker. Blackened limbs and other body parts were placed by the mall entrance for examination by relatives. The Red Cross said that by mid-afternoon the remains of 16 people had been removed by relatives and another 88 taken to a hospital mortuary.
The city centre was a ghost town as office workers stayed at home. Trisakti University where four students were shot dead by troops on Tuesday cancelled its daily anti-Suharto demonstrations yesterday to avoid provoking more rioting.
Jakarta's financial and commodity markets were unable to operate as staff did not turn up for work. Banks stayed shut. Only a handful of taxis and private cars plied the streets, along with occasional military convoys . The government ordered the Stock Exchange to stay open but the volume of trade was only 1 per cent of normal.
The chorus of voices calling for President Suharto's resignation increased yesterday. Opposition leader, Dr Amien Rais, addressing a congregation in a Jakarta mosque, said: "The regime is facing its end, its death and there is no way to avoid or postpone it."
The youth faction of the Golkar party, which has supported Mr Suharto for 32 years, yesterday called for a meeting of the People's Consultative assembly to re-open the question of the country's leadership. Forty-four government critics, including Mr Rais, issued a statement on Thursday announcing the formation of the Council for People's Mandate and demanding that the president resign.