Manifesto Padi

Indonesia's Suharto dies

The former dictator, a U.S. Cold War ally who ruled ruthlessly for 32 years, was 86.

By Richard C. Paddock and Paul Watson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

January 27, 2008 (From the Los Angeles Times)

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 today in Indonesia. He was 86.

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.

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 and low blood pressure.

Suharto surprized his doctors, and the nation, last week by overcoming a blood infection and making what one physician called a miraculous recovery. But his health suddenly took a turn for the worse again, and by Sunday morning, he had suffered multiple organ failure for a second time

As Suharto drifted in and out of consciousness, his family gave doctors permission to take him off life support whenever they saw fit.

Declaring a week of mourning, President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono asked all Indonesians to "pay the highest respect to one of the best sons of the nation."

"I'm asking all Indonesian to pray for him, for his dedication and service to the country, and to human beings. We also pray for the family to be strong, and look ahead for better future," said the president, a former army general.

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 felt 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 was ousted, Indonesia's radical Islamic movement gained new strength, but the softer approach has slowly shown results. There have been fewer high-profile attacks in recent years.

Suharto preferred an iron hand. 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 divvied up 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 any of 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.

Critics alleged that his claim of illness was a ploy.

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 only pursue civil claims against seven Suharto family foundations, and on Saturday, offered to settle out of court for $1.5 billion. The family rejected the offer.

The poor are among those who will mourn Suharto's passing, said political analyst Arbi Sanit.

"People from the lower class have strong sympathy toward Suharto because they enjoyed economic stability in the Suharto era," Sanit said. "Meanwhile, the upper class criticizes Suharto because they used to have difficulties running their business."

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 one 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 eldest 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. His father, a village irrigation official, was married three times. His mother, Sukirah, remarried and had seven more children.

The future president's family was so poor 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.

His first job was as a bank clerk. But riding his bicycle to work one day, he ripped his sarong, the traditional Javanese garment that was required dress at his office. Too poor to buy another, he lost his bank position.

Nine months later, he enlisted in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, but that position too ended quickly: In 1942, the ruling Dutch surrendered the territory to Japan.

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 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 the age of 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 only after Suharto was ousted.

Just as with the number of killings, the size of the fortune Suharto amassed and the locations of the money remained unclear.

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 B.J. Habibie.

Suharto at that point had ruled Indonesia for more than half the country's existence and had remained in power longer than any sitting head of state except Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Many of his critics were disappointed that 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.

"The most important thing," Masduki said, "was a verdict from this country that the New Order kleptocracy was wrong, that the way he did business was wrong and the way he treated human rights was wrong, so that Indonesia won't repeat it in the future."

Suharto's wife, Siti Hartinah, died in 1996. Suharto is survived by three sons and three daughters.

richard.paddock@latimes.com

paul.watson@latimes.com

Times staff writer Dinda Jouhana and former Times staff writer David Lamb contributed to this report.