If troops or plainclothes police appeared, there could be a clash, or the crowd would dissolve down Medan's streets and alleys followed by tear gas and bullets. What they did not take, they torched. It is a national disaster. Order vanished with a speed and treachery that shocked even Medan's residents, who can, in the best of times, take perverse pleasure in their city's famously brutal reputation. The riots and looting, which had died out by May 7, exceeded in reach and damage those of April 1994, which were touched off by labor protests.
Official reports say two people died, including a boy burned to death in a store.
Local press reported more fatalities. Scores were hurt, hundreds of shops ransacked, dozens of cars and motorcycles left smoldering. Medan was an exception. Its fragile, precarious nature lay exposed, terribly obvious. Its lawlessness, social turmoil and ethnic violence horrified Indonesians, as much for the ferocity as for the dim fear that Medan might be a hint of the country's near future.