Bush visit sparks Indonesian fury

Slipping into Indonesia for a six-hour visit on Nov. 20, President Bush's main aim was to strengthen a key "war on terror" alliance. Bush's minders dared not risk a stay in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Instead, the president was whisked by a helicopter 30 miles south to a heavily guarded former colonial palace in Bogor, where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono awaited him. Yet even there, thousands of Muslim activists were waiting, chanting slogans such as "We hope Bush dies." In the run-up to Bush's visit, two dozen members of a fundamentalist Islamic group raided and occupied a historic botanical garden in Bogor. Their target was the site where a construction crew was building a landing pad for Bush's helicopter. Their message was simple: Bush was not welcome in the world's largest Muslim-majority country. Bush's lightening quick trip to the country prompted a full week of demonstrations prior to his arrival. Groups ranging from radical Muslims to anti-globalization campaigners rallied in several cities to criticize Bush, Yudhoyono and US policies in the Middle East. The day before Bush arrived, nearly 13,000 demonstrators wound through the streets of Jakarta, some chanting "War criminal" and "You are a terrorist!" One man dragged an effigy of the president on the road behind him. The next day, outside Bogor's locked-down town center, thousands of anti-US protesters ignored monsoon rain and thunder to chant anti-Bush slogans after breaking through an outer ring of police barricades. On the fringes of Bogor, thousands of students, activists and other protesters gathered with placards reading "Kill Bush," "Stop Bush now" and "Terror Bush." Leaders of the Alliance of United Muslim Mass Organizations, which groups scores of Islamic groups, called for Bush to be put to death and denounced him as a "war criminal" and a "terrorist" at a rally of some 2-3,000 people. "Kill him, kill him," said one protest leader through a loudspeaker. In the West Java capital of Bandung, student protesters dressed up one of their number as Bush before draping him in a US flag and setting him on fire. The double was apparently not injured in the stunt. Fast-food restaurants were the target of student groups who took to the streets in Yogyakarta and Surabaya. The Gadjah Mada University Students Alliance Against Bush, the Indonesia Students Front and Indonesian Students Movement held separate protests on a main road in Yogyakarta. After the protest, some 300 front members sealed off two restaurants they claimed represented the United States. Demonstrations against Bush included a riot outside of a McDonald's near the US consulate office in the east Java city of Surabaya, where a number of arrests were made after demonstrators charged a police line. Several students were reportedly beaten in the fracas. Bush shrugged off the protests and said at a joint press conference with Yudhoyono that he "applauds a society where people are free to come express their opinion." "It's to Indonesia's credit that it's a society where people are able to protest and say what they think. And it's not the first time, by the way, where people have showed up and expressed their opinion about my policies," he continued. "People protest, that's a good sign. It's a sign of a healthy society." Nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 238 million people are Muslims. That amounts to approximately one-sixth of the Muslim world. After four decades of authoritarian rule, the nation's first democratic elections were held seven years ago; Yudhoyono was elected in 2004.