Employees picketed Gresik's plants not only in Padang but in East Java and South Sulawesi.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'

"It's not just because of Liem, but because Semen Gresik has better earnings growth potential, " says Partono.

CNN: Sizing Up Suharto Shares

In April, rumors spread that Gresik's new owners - whoever they might be - would lay off nearly half the plant's 3, 000 employees.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'

Gresik's president-director, Urip Timuryono, who had worked his way up in the company over a 24-year-career, says management met the bidders only during the due diligence process.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'

There are any number of reasons why an army of bankers, bureaucrats, consultants and analysts failed to foresee the strength of the ground-level resistance to the Gresik sale.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'

It was the province's largest enterprise, and its 1995 acquisition by East Java-based Gresik in a government-directed consolidation of state-owned cement plants was a traumatic experience for West Sumatra.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'

As for companies linked to Suharto's billionaire buddy Liem Sioe Liong, investors seem to have switched from Indocement as a core holding to Semen Gresik, a state-controlled listed cement player.

CNN: Sizing Up Suharto Shares

It is also home to Gresik's subsidiary Semen Padang.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'

On April 22, according to one of the organizers, local residents held the first of a series of demonstrations that would, in just a few months, bring the Gresik deal out of the boardrooms and into the complicated arena of post-Suharto reformasi politics.

CNN: 'THE PEOPLE'S ASPIRATION'