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Anti-US demonstrations continued on Saturday in several cities across Indonesia.
In the Riau capital of Pekanbaru, nearly 300 supporters of the Justice Party (PK), marched from National Heroes Cemetery on Jl. Sudirman to the provincial legislature. They stopped in front of a McDonald's for a while on their way to the legislature to call for a boycott of US products.
In Yogyakarta, some 2,000 PK members also staged a demonstration outside the Post Office near the Yogyakarta State Palace, according to a report from the Jakarta Post Sunday.
PK President Hidayat Nurwahid demanded the Indonesian government to withdraw its ambassador from Washington as a concrete step to express its rejection of the US-led military attack on Iraq.
The party, according to Hidayat, would also be sending volunteers to conduct a humanitarian mission in Iraq. The first batch of humanitarian volunteers of some 1,000 will be dispatched from Jakarta on Monday.
Separately, students from the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University held a rally to protest the US-led attack on Iraq. Theybranded the attack as a serious violation of the UN charter, international law and human rights.
They also criticized UN Secretary-General Koffi Annan for failing to stop the United States and its allies from invading Iraq.
In the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar, students of the Indonesian Muslim University took to the streets on Jl. Urip Sumohardjo to demand that the US coalition and Iraq stop the war immediately so that there will be no civilian victims.
In Jakarta, nearly 200 people from the Betawi Brotherhood Forumtook part in an anti-US rally in front of the US Embassy in Central Jakarta.
(Xinhua News Agency March 23, 2003)
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