President Suharto, 86; Indonesian ruler left mixed legacy of
prosperity and untold deaths
JAKARTA, INDONESIA -- Former President Suharto, an army general who
rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of
thousands of people and ruled for 32 years over an era of rapid
economic growth and extraordinary graft, died Sunday in Indonesia. He
was 86.
Like many Javanese, Suharto went by only one name. He had been in
poor health for years after suffering several strokes and other
ailments. He was rushed to the hospital Jan. 4 with anemia, low blood
pressure and other ailments.
Suharto's unyielding opposition to communism won him the backing of
the United States during the height of the Cold War, although he was
one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers of that era. He governed
the world's fourth-most-populous nation with a combination of
paternalism and ruthlessness from 1965 until he was ousted in the
spring of 1998.
Pallbearers, dressed in combat fatigues and representing each of
Indonesia's armed forces, carried Suharto's flag-draped coffin after
a ceremony Monday morning at Cendana Palace, where he lived as
president and in retirement.
Female relatives sprinkled the ground with flower petals after
Suharto's coffin was loaded into a white Mercedes-Benz van.
"We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them . . . may he
be absolved of all his mistakes," Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti
Hardiyanti Rukmana, told reporters earlier.
Her father's coffin was flown by transport plane to Central Java,
where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presided over a state
funeral and burial at the Suharto family cemetery near Solo. He was
laid to rest next to his wife.
Hailing the former dictator as "one of the nation's best citizens,"
Yudhoyono declared a week of national mourning.
Hundreds of Indonesians converged on Suharto's mansion in south
Jakarta, and their mixed reactions to his death reflected the complex
legacy of a man revered by many as the "Father of Development" and
despised by many others as a mass murderer.
Siti Rahayu, a 27-year-old housemaid, said she was sad because
Suharto had suffered for weeks, and she missed his regime because
things were better for the poor then.
"Although he's responsible for all the corruption, collusion and
nepotism, it was for the people. We had a lot of debt because he
wanted to build our country," she said.
Rudiyanto, 43, a wildlife researcher, said Suharto was still
synonymous with president in his mind.
"And as president, Suharto did what he had to; whether his way of
doing it required 'victims,' that's another story," Rudiyanto said,
adding that it's important for the country's future that the courts
decide whether "he was wrong or right, whether he was hero or crook."
U.S. Ambassador Cameron R. Hume paid his respects to Suharto at the
former dictator's home. In a statement, Hume praised the "remarkable
economic and social development" that Indonesia achieved under
Suharto.
"Though there may be some controversy over his legacy, President
Suharto was a historic figure who left a lasting imprint on Indonesia
and the region of Southeast Asia," Hume said.
Suharto expanded Indonesia's territory by force and guile, annexing
the territories of Papua and East Timor and brutally suppressing the
independence movement in the province of Aceh in a conflict that
lasted 27 years.
The estimates of the number of people killed by Suharto's
regime "vary from 300,000 to 2 million, but the exact number nobody
knows," said Asmara Nababan, former secretary general of Indonesia's
Human Rights Commission. "It created a big wound in society, and even
today it is not completely gone."
His military regime incarcerated hundreds of thousands of political
prisoners for years without trial. Many critics of his rule simply
vanished.
But long before Suharto's death, Indonesians were working to build a
democracy from the rubble of his regime, which collapsed in 1998 amid
nationwide protests and riots sparked by an economic meltdown across
the region.
Under a carefully managed compromise, the Indonesian military
retained its dominance over politics behind the scenes in exchange
for allowing democratic reforms.
In one of the most significant steps of the post-Suharto era,
government power has been decentralized. More than 16,000 public
service facilities were transferred to regional authorities, which
boosted economic growth in areas that once seemed to be overlooked.
Conflicts in East Timor and Aceh have been resolved. East Timor was
granted independence, while guerrillas in Aceh laid down their arms
in exchange for special autonomy for the province, a peace deal
forged after the devastation of the 2004 tsunami.
After Suharto's ouster, Indonesia's radical Islamic movement gained
new strength, but the Democratic government's softer approach has
slowly shown results. There have been fewer high-profile attacks in
recent years.
Suharto preferred to rule with an iron fist. He not only crushed
Indonesia's Communist Party, but also suppressed Islamic extremists,
forcing the most militant clerics into exile.
During this 32-year rule, Suharto is credited with stimulating
economic growth, cutting the annual inflation rate from 600% to 6.5%
and raising personal income from an average of $70 a year to $1,300.
The number of Indonesians living in dire poverty fell from 56% to
12%, and literacy rates and average life spans rose.
At the same time, he divided the nation's wealth among his six
children and his cronies, amassing a family fortune estimated at $40
billion. The system of government by kleptocracy that flourished
under Suharto has plagued the country ever since.
Suharto's son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, was sent to prison for
embezzling millions and orchestrating the murder of a Supreme Court
justice, but Suharto was never prosecuted. Nor did the government
ever seize his allegedly ill-gotten assets.
In 2000, the government charged him with embezzling $571 million. But
the courts eventually ruled that Suharto, who had suffered strokes
after resigning the presidency, was too ill to face charges.
In May 2006, Yudhoyono's government reviewed the charges against
Suharto and reached the same conclusion as the judges: He was too ill
to be taken to court.
Indonesia's attorney general said this month that he would pursue
only civil claims against seven Suharto family foundations and
offered to settle out of court for $1.5 billion. The family rejected
the offer.
Unlike other dictators who stashed assets in foreign bank accounts,
Suharto maintained that he never diverted money overseas.
"The fact is I don't even have 1 cent of savings abroad, don't have
accounts at foreign banks, don't have deposits abroad and don't even
have any shares in foreign firms," he said in one of his few public
statements after he lost power -- a recorded message played in
September 1998 on a television station partly owned by his oldest
daughter.
Suharto lived out his retirement on a leafy street in Jakarta, the
capital, occasionally meeting with dignitaries who came to visit.
Suharto was born June 8, 1921, in Kemusu, a village in central Java,
the only child of parents who divorced shortly after he was born.
The future president's family was so poor that it could not afford to
buy him the shorts and shoes required at his junior high school,
forcing him to quit. He later finished his formal education at 18 in
a school run by Muhammadiyah, an Islamic organization.
With the departure of Japanese forces after World War II, Suharto
joined the fight against the Dutch rulers. Indonesia declared
independence in 1945, and he rose through the ranks of the army.
Independent Indonesia's first president was Sukarno, a nationalist
who had been imprisoned by the Dutch in 1929 and 1937. In 1964,
Sukarno told the United States to "go to hell with your aid." The
next year, he pulled Indonesia out of the United Nations.
In October 1965, dissident army units abducted and killed six of
Sukarno's top generals. For reasons never fully explained, Suharto
was not among the victims, although he was a major general and key
army leader. Many observers speculated that he was involved in the
abortive coup, which officially was blamed on the Communists. Yet it
was Suharto who took the initiative and crushed the revolt.
He then outmaneuvered Sukarno and placed him under virtual house
arrest from 1966 until his death in 1970 at 69.
Appointed acting president in 1967, Suharto moved to consolidate his
newfound power with a program called the New Order. He cleared the
military and civil service of leftists in a bloody purge that won him
the support of U.S. leaders.
The annexation and military occupation of Papua in 1969 after a
rigged vote of self-determination and of East Timor in 1975 led to
hundreds of thousands more deaths. East Timor, after struggling
against Indonesian rule for 24 years, won its independence in 1999
after Suharto was ousted.
Teten Masduki, coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said
Suharto plundered Indonesia's forests, mineral resources, oil and
agriculture. He set trade policies to benefit his financial empire,
gave his cronies control of the banks and sold off the country's
assets.
By 1997, Indonesia's economy was too fragile to survive the region's
economic collapse.
Small demonstrations by students started in February 1998 with a call
for economic and political reform. The protests grew, attracting
professionals and academics. The shooting of six students by security
forces in Jakarta on May 12, 1998, sparked riots that claimed 500
lives. Nine days later, Suharto announced his resignation and handed
over power to Vice President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie.
Suharto at that point had ruled Indonesia for more than half the
country's existence and had been in power longer than any sitting
head of state except Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Many critics were disappointed he was never put on trial. The
government's inability to hold Suharto accountable, they said, set
back Indonesia's recovery from three decades of authoritarian rule.
Suharto's wife, Siti Hartinah, died in 1996. Suharto is survived by
three sons and three daughters.
Link (w/pic):
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-
suharto28jan28,0,3273806,full.story
