Regional

East Java students reject SBY visit

Selasa, 14 November 2006 | 03:43 WIB

Surabaya, NU Online
Tens of students from the East Java University Student Executive Board (BEM) staged a rally outside the East Java  Provincial Legislative Assembly (DPRD) building here Monday rejecting a scheduled visit to Surabaya by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) next Wednesday (Nov 15) on the ground he had  yet to solve the Lapindo mud-flow disaster.

The students carried banners showing texts reading among other things "Reject SBY-Kalla visit to East Java before the Lapindo disaster is solved", "SBY : Don’t Be a Henchman of Capitalism", "Lapindo Terror, A Product of Government,"  "Lapindo Mud is SBY - Kalla’s Hell".

<>President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is slated to come to Surabaya on Wednesday to inaugurate the city’s new Juanda airport.

The students  also expressed anti-US sentiment as evident from the text of one of their banners reading  "SBY - Kalla US puppets" while they also carried a flag purporting to be a combination of the  Indonesian and US national flags with the word "Indorika" printed on it.

A student of the Surabaya-based Unitomo University, Adi Doank, said on behalf of the East Java BEM, President Yudhoyono should not visit East Java before the government had thoroughly investigated the Lapindo mud flow in Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java.

Suwartiningsih, a spokesperson of the province’s BEM, said  the government had so far done nothing significant to overcome the Lapindo mud flow disaster. (ant/dar)