Client

Mark Stucke

Order #

TC0797745574

Speaker 1:

These are the images of a revolution, of an Asian giant teetering on a razor's edge. In Indonesia the forces of changes have been locked in desperate battle with an aging dictator. At stake, the very future of a nation.

Speaker 2:

[foreign language 00:00:30]

Speaker 1:

Trisakti University, West Jakarta. It's here that the sons and daughters of the capital's moneyed elite are schooled. More a cradle of conservatism than people's power, Trisakti is an unlikely landmark for a revolution, but the forces of darkness engulfed this campus. What unfolded galvanized a nation and toppled a president.

Speaker 3:

[foreign language 00:01:00]

Speaker 1:

Tuesday, May the 12th. Swept up in a wave of national protest, the students of Trisakti rally for reform. Emboldened by weeks of anti-government demonstrations around the country, the unthinkable began. The children of the wealthy started burning portraits of the man who made their parents rich. This was the limit of their daring, as we moved around the campus talking to students, there was no hint of the terror to come. After the speeches were over, the students of Trisakti began to move out onto the streets to march to the Parliament just a few kilometers away.

Waiting to meet them, the Indonesian Armed Forces. In the face of daily anti-government rallies, an order had gone out to confine students to their campuses. Despite the show of military might, controlling this crowd hardly presented a major challenge. The students of Trisakti came armed with roses, not molotov cocktails.

The Dean of the law school, a former Supreme Court Judge, was on hand to make sure the situation remained under control.

Speaker 8:

[foreign language 00:02:34]

Speaker 1:

It's demonstrations like this one in the capital which Indonesia's security forces are most worried about. The country's student protesters are now getting closer to the seat of power.

For the next few hours, a calm standoff ensued. Time to rail once more against the Suharto regime, and to do so in front of the world's media.

What sort of changes do you want? Do you want a new president, for instance?

Speaker 5:

Me, frankly, yeah. Yeah. I think my friend all here wants new president. Okay?

Speaker 1:

A tropical downpour ensured that tempers remained in check, and looked like bringing an uneventful demonstration to a peaceful end. As afternoon turned to evening on this fateful Tuesday, the gentle rain became a tempest.

Speaker 5:

[foreign language 00:03:37]

Speaker 1:

What unfolded over the next five minutes would confirm a place for Trisakti in the pages of Indonesian history.

Without warning, the shooting started. Restraint exploded into a rampage as troopers moved in to clear the road. With nowhere to escape, bystanders cowered on the foot path, helpless in the face of the savage onslaught. Inside the campus, it was a living hell. The crack of live ammunition echoed across the concrete forecourt of Trisakti.

Speaker 6:

They beat the wrong people. You see that?

Speaker 7:

Yeah.

Speaker 6:

The students is not guilty. These people, these people, the green people. They are the guilty one.

Speaker 1:

This, according to students, was sniper fire. When the shooting stopped, four students lay dead. At the hospital, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, all inconsolable in their grief. In the morgue, prayers are chanted over the body of Elang Muliana, shot in the neck. An engineering student, he was about to celebrate his 20th birthday. Muliana's cousin, Yakuk, keeps a tearful vigil.

Yayuk:

If I close my eyes, Elang comes to me and smile and sometime I hear "Oh, Yakuk, I'm hurt. I'm hurt." I'm just quiet, and "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I feel it. I feel it."

Speaker 9:

[foreign language 00:06:08] translate

Speaker 10:

[foreign language 00:06:23] translate

Speaker 8:

I saw the corpse of the dead students, and the crying of the parents and other family members, so it makes me very, very sad.

Vilmar Vitola:

I stood on the spot of where they were shot the next day, and I was very sad and for some reason very lonely. Very sad because these were real people, I mean, they are the same age my children are, and very lonely because I thought that how can a country do this to these innocent people? They are inside the campus, they were shot in the back.

Speaker 1:

Wednesday, May the 13th. Trisakti University mourns, so does the nation.

Speaker 11:

[foreign language 00:07:47]

Speaker 1:

Thousands flood onto the campus to express their anger and their grief. Already it's clear these killings are a critical turning point. The forces of opposition begin making the Trisakti four martyrs to their cause.

Speaker 12:

[foreign language 00:08:06] translate

Speaker 13:

[foreign language 00:08:13] translate

Speaker 14:

[foreign language 00:08:34] translate

Vilmar Vitola:

One or two weeks before, at a rally at the University of Indonesia, somebody made a very chilling remark. In jest I'm sure, but he said, "All we need now is a martyr." I felt chilled, because way back in '66, the movement also took off when Ari Frahman died in a demonstration. Of course, I didn't want that to happen at all, but when it happened I think, they've got to be seen as martyrs to be sure their deaths are not in vain.

Speaker 15:

[foreign language 00:09:28]

Speaker 1:

As the events of bloody Tuesday are reconstructed, evidence mounts that the killings were premeditated, carried out in support of a dark, sinister cause.

Speaker 16:

That day, that bloody Tuesday, we are getting shot at by the sniper. It is very immoral and very brutal. It is a murder. The national people must see this.

Vilmar Vitola:

I think this is a small, elite core of sharp shooters who are groomed for a very specific, dark political purpose.

Speaker 1:

Just who do you think it was who issued this order?

Vilmar Vitola:

Those who seek to gain political advantage from, I don't know, this kind of perverse political spin attached to it. Whether they seek to terrorize or whether they sought to provoke a backlash from writers outside so as to discredit the political movement.

Speaker 1:

Who do you think that person was, who ordered this?

Vilmar Vitola:

I don't know, and if I knew, of course I wouldn't dare to mention that name. That's the one person we'll be very, very afraid of.

Speaker 1:

As the morning continues, outside the campus a crowd gathers. News of the shooting has spread throughout the capital, ordinary Indonesians are outraged.

Crowds of onlookers around the universities are now showing their anger at the death of students here yesterday. There's every chance now that rioting could break out around the campus.

Speaker 17:

[foreign language 00:11:23]

Speaker 1:

The agitated throng urge the students to join them to exact revenge. Fearful of more shooting, the students of Trisakti appeal for restraint, but to no avail. The rioting has begun. Caught in the melee, we scramble to our car to escape the mob. Then, the sound of gunfire. It appears the killing might be about to start again. From these streets outside Trisakti, the rioting spreads throughout the capital. For the next 48 hours, anarchy reigns. Thousands run amok in an orgy of violence, looting, and vengeance. At all points of the city, buildings are ablaze. Thick smoke blackens the sky. While sparked by the Trisakti killings, this isn't the work of students. It's an explosion on the streets. Indonesia's [Orang Kuchil 00:12:51], it's small people, are lashing out.

[00:13:00]

Speaker 18:

This revenge of people Okay? Suharto must [inaudible 00:13:03] this. He must go down from this country!

Speaker 1:

Finally, the tanks come in. Thousands of troops are sent in to the capital with orders to take all necessary steps to control the unrest. Jakarta is a war zone. More than 500 people are dead.

Speaker 19:

[foreign language 00:13:30]

Speaker 1:

The push against the president is now moving with breathtaking speed. Back at Trisakti, prayers are being said for the slain students. Later in the night, Suharto is lampooned in a performance of poetry and dance. The Trisakti deaths have galvanized students from all around the country. Thousands of them pour into the grounds of the national Parliament, vowing to stay until Suharto has stood down. The end is near for the political colossus who has towered over this nation for more than 30 years.

Speaker 20:

[foreign language 00:14:19]

Vilmar Vitola:

[foreign language 00:14:20]

Speaker 21:

[foreign language 00:14:22]

Speaker 1:

Lending his support to the revolutionary calls, former student activist Vilmar Vitola.

Vilmar Vitola:

Students, by default, are seen as representing, as articulating, the needs of the people long resigned to being very quiet and very timid. Unless the students violate this trust, they're always seen as the good guys. It's just a matter of how effective they are. Mentally, morally, the whole general population sympathizes with the student.

Speaker 1:

Elang Muliana is laid to rest. His family and millions of Indonesians mourn their martyrs.

Speaker 22:

[foreign language 00:15:15]

Speaker 1:

The Trisakti four have defined a movement, given it the momentum to reach it's goal. Just a week and two days after they were gunned down in cold blood, President Suharto resigns.

How might history come to judge this event on Trisakti University campus?

Vilmar Vitola:

They will see these people as heroes, and we will make sure these people are respected as heroes. Friends of ours are erecting a monument for them, and they'll go down in history.

Speaker 1:

The story of Bloody Tuesday hasn't ended yet. Sofyan Rahman was also shot at Trisakti on May the 12th. Doctors don't expect him to live. As for the students who toppled a dictator, their battle for democracy and freedom has still to be won.