Indonesia`s Former President Suharto Dies

[george]

Indonesia`s former president Soeharto dies

JAKARTA: -- Former President Soeharto (86) died on Sunday (Jan 27) at 13:10 after he was treated about two weeks at the Pertamina Hospital in South Jakarta.

The Indonesian second president was admitted to the Pertamina Hospital last Friday on January 4, 2008, for suffering from anemia and severe edema.

Soeharto began his New Order government after then President Soekarno authorized him in March 1966 to overcome the chaotic situation in the aftermath of the aborted Communist coup in 1965.

A special session of the provisional People`s Consultative Assembly (MPRS) in March 1967 appointed Soeharto acting president and he was officially sworn in Indonesia`s second president in March 1968.

Soeharto who was born in Kemusuk village, Yogyakarta, on June 8, 1921, ruled the country for 32 years through six consecutive general elections.

Between 1960 and 1965, the national economy grew merely by an average of 2.1 percent annually. The inflation rate reached over 250 percent in 1961-1965 and even jumped to 650 percent in 1966.

After the stabilization and rehabilitation drive carried out by the New Order in 1966 and 1968, economic growth reached an average of six percent.

Thus, in 1969, Soeharto began to implement his ideas to lift up the country from poverty through five-year development plans called "Repelita".

At the start of Repelita I, Indonesia`s per capita income stood at US$70, and Indonesia was rated as one of the poorest countries in the world.

About three decades later, the country`s per capita income went up to US$1,155 and Indonesia was regarded a middle income country. The economy grew convincingly by an average of seven to eight percent a year over a period of 25 years.

Entering the 80s and the 90s, the inflation rate was maintained at an average of 10 percent, and in 1996 it reached 6.5 percent.

The result of Soeharto`s economic programs made Indonesia which had been crippled by poverty in the previous three decades, one of the newly emerging economies in South East Asia.

The number of poor people declined from 60 percent in 1967 to 40 percent in 1980 and 21 percent or 37 million people in 1987. With a population of about 200 million, Indonesia was able to further reduce the number of its poor to 11.3 percent or 22.5 million in 1996.

The success of his economic development earned him the title "Bapak Pembangunan" (Father of Development) which was conferred on him by the People`s Consultative Assembly (MPR) in 1983 in recognition of his success.

Through diversification in the agricultural sector, Soeharto also succeeded in turning Indonesia from a rice-importing to a rice-exporting nation.

In 1980, Soeharto declared Indonesia self-sufficient in rice and traveled to Rome in 1985 to receive a crowning award from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

The New Order era leader resigned from the presidential post on May 21, 1998.

-- Antara News 2008-01-27

[george]

Bio (Source: Wikipedia):

Suharto (June 8, 1921 - January 27, 2008) was an Indonesian military and political leader. He served as a military officer in the Indonesian National Revolution, but is better known as the long-reigning second President of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998.

Suharto seized power from his predecessor, the first president of Indonesia Sukarno, through a mixture of force and political maneuvering against the backdrop of foreign and domestic unrest. Over the three decades of his "Orde Baru" (New Order) regime, Suharto constructed a strong central government along militarist lines. An ability to maintain stability and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of several Western governments in the era of the Cold War. For most of his three-decade rule, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization.[1] His rule, however, led to political purges and the deaths of millions of suspected Indonesian communists and Chinese-Indonesians,[2] and enaction of legislation outlawing communist parties and ethnic Chinese.[3]

By the 1990s, his New Order administration's authoritarian and increasingly corrupt practices had become a source of much discontent. Suharto's almost unquestioned authority over Indonesian affairs slipped dramatically when the Asian financial crisis lowered Indonesians' standard of living and fractured his support among the nation's military, political and civil society institutions. After internal unrest, diplomatic isolation began to drain his support in the mid-to-late 1990s, Suharto was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 following mass demonstrations. After serving as the public face of Indonesia for over 30 years, Suharto now lives his post-presidential years in virtual seclusion. Attempts to try him on charges of genocide have failed due to his failing health. His legacy remains hotly debated and contested both in Indonesia and abroad.

Like many Javanese, Suharto has only one name. In contexts where his religion is being discussed he is sometimes called Haji or el-Haj Mohammed Suharto, but this Islamic title is not part of his formal name or generally used. The spelling "Suharto" has been official in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling Soeharto is still frequently used.

[maccaroni man]

Bio (Source: Wikipedia):

Suharto (June 8, 1921 - January 27, 2008) was an Indonesian military and political leader. He served as a military officer in the Indonesian National Revolution, but is better known as the long-reigning second President of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998.

Suharto seized power from his predecessor, the first president of Indonesia Sukarno, through a mixture of force and political maneuvering against the backdrop of foreign and domestic unrest. Over the three decades of his "Orde Baru" (New Order) regime, Suharto constructed a strong central government along militarist lines. An ability to maintain stability and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of several Western governments in the era of the Cold War. For most of his three-decade rule, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization.[1] His rule, however, led to political purges and the deaths of millions of suspected Indonesian communists and Chinese-Indonesians,[2] and enaction of legislation outlawing communist parties and ethnic Chinese.[3]

By the 1990s, his New Order administration's authoritarian and increasingly corrupt practices had become a source of much discontent. Suharto's almost unquestioned authority over Indonesian affairs slipped dramatically when the Asian financial crisis lowered Indonesians' standard of living and fractured his support among the nation's military, political and civil society institutions. After internal unrest, diplomatic isolation began to drain his support in the mid-to-late 1990s, Suharto was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 following mass demonstrations. After serving as the public face of Indonesia for over 30 years, Suharto now lives his post-presidential years in virtual seclusion. Attempts to try him on charges of genocide have failed due to his failing health. His legacy remains hotly debated and contested both in Indonesia and abroad.

Like many Javanese, Suharto has only one name. In contexts where his religion is being discussed he is sometimes called Haji or el-Haj Mohammed Suharto, but this Islamic title is not part of his formal name or generally used. The spelling "Suharto" has been official in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling Soeharto is still frequently used.

When he lost power a focus was put on his and his families corruption i.e son owning the countries car company, bali resorts, clove factories for national cigs, daughter owning toll roads, etc.... and how they had robbed the country of billions of u.s. dollars. The public out cry was very much the same as Thaksin last days in thailand. What I do not understand about Suharto is, for a man who did seem to love his country why he refussed to return any of his pillage much the same as many politicos who claim to love their country.

[donna]

i believe he is being transported to yogyakarta today for burial next to his wife in the family compound. certainly no public grieving is seen in bali (as far as i can see).

[dominique355]

Ah well ... Suharto is gone, soon G.W.B. will be a thing of the past, but then ...

- Thaksin is back

- Berlusconi is back (the Italian crook PM)

[marshbags]

On behalf of the unfortunate victims of the oppressive years of Suharto please allow and enable T. Visa members to familiarise themselves with the history relating to Suharto,s infamous 30 year reign of military terror and the horrendous loss of innocent lives.

This is taken from an article i asked for relating to the period it all took place.

Indonesia: Suharto’s Death a Chance for Victims to Find Justice

Government Should Investigate Crimes of Former Dictator’s Regime

(New York, January 27, 2008) – The death of former president Suharto at age 86 provides an opportunity to commemorate the many victims of his oppressive regime, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch said the Indonesian government should make a serious commitment to hold accountable the perpetrators of human rights abuses during his rule.

Suharto has gotten away with murder – another dictator who’s lived out his life in luxury and escaped justice. But many of Suharto’s cronies are still around, so the Indonesian government should take the chance to put his many partners in human rights abuse on trial.

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch

Quote :-

Related Material

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Indonesia: New Prisoners of Conscience in the Post-Suharto Era

Press Release, July 10, 2003

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Suharto presided over more than three decades of military dictatorship and systematic human rights abuses, including media censorship, tight restrictions on freedom of association and assembly, a highly politicized and controlled judiciary, widespread torture, attacks on the rights of minorities, massacres of alleged communists, and numerous war crimes committed in East Timor, Aceh, Papua and the Moluccan islands. He also presided over a famously corrupt regime in which he, his family, and his cronies amassed billions of dollars in illegal wealth – funds which could have addressed Indonesia’s widespread poverty and social problems.

“Suharto has gotten away with murder – another dictator who’s lived out his life in luxury and escaped justice,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But many of Suharto’s cronies are still around, so the Indonesian government should take the chance to put his many partners in human rights abuse on trial.”

To date, there has been virtually no legal accounting for the widespread abuses committed during Suharto’s rule, or for the violence instigated by pro-Suharto forces in a failed attempt to stave off his 1998 fall from power. Suharto himself never faced trial for human rights abuses. The former dictator spent the last years of his life living in luxury. On account of Suharto’s alleged poor health, in May 2006, prosecutors dropped one case that alleged that he had stolen $600 million from the state’s coffers.

“Indonesia’s attorney general never issued an indictment against him for human rights violations,” said Adams. “While there has been a great deal of political reform, repeated failures to hold perpetrators of serious human rights crimes to account have meant that Indonesia still has not come to terms with the worst of Suharto’s legacy.”

Human Rights Watch said that the lack of justice for Suharto’s crimes is directly linked to the continuing impunity enjoyed by Indonesia’s security forces, despite many political reforms and promises to address past abuses. Since 1998, the legal and institutional bases of Suharto’s political repression have been largely removed, and there has been great progress on freedom of association and expression.

One important consequence of this failure is that, although the military no longer formally plays a political role (the military’s “Dwifungsi” or “dual function” ideology relied on by Suharto has been abandoned and is now discredited), the military continues to be territorially and economically entrenched. The military still is not fully answerable to the Ministry of Defense, and much-heralded reforms to end the armed forces’ involvement in business are stalled. The predictable result is conflicts of interest and abuses, as with the May 2007 killing of civilians in Pasuruan, East Java, by marines who had ousted farmers and planted commercial crops on the disputed land. Another consequence is that where there is conflict in Indonesia today, as in Papua, security forces – both military and special police units – still commit abuses and are almost never held accountable.

“Justice is a key missing piece in Indonesia’s reform story,” said Adams. “The failure to touch Suharto shows how far Indonesia still has to go if it is to establish strong, independent prosecutors and courts, and put an end to serious security-force abuses.”

Background

Suharto’s sordid legacy dates to the army-backed massacres in 1965 that accompanied his rise to power. A failed coup against President Sukarno in September 1965 claimed the lives of six army generals, but it was the army, led by then-Major General Suharto, that emerged as the paramount power in the aftermath.

Although the events surrounding the coup attempt remain unclear and some participants themselves described it as an internal military affair, the government maintained that the Indonesian Communist Party was exclusively responsible for the coup attempt. From 1965 to 1967, Suharto presided over a bloodbath that destroyed the Indonesian Communist Party. Estimates of the number of people killed range from a quarter of a million to more than 1 million. Hundreds of thousands of citizens suspected of having leftist affiliations, including large numbers of teachers and student activists, were imprisoned. Most of them were never tried, let alone convicted of any offense. Suharto was officially proclaimed president in March 1967.

Under Suharto’s “New Order” regime, Indonesian society became progressively militarized, with the Indonesian armed forces playing an increasingly prominent role as a social and political force. Throughout his rule, Suharto viciously suppressed any sign of anti-government unrest or separatist ambition. Military operations, most notably in East Timor, Aceh, and Papua, were characterized by undisciplined and unaccountable troops committing widespread abuses against civilians, including extrajudicial executions, torture, forced disappearances, beatings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and drastic limits on freedom of movement.

In 1975, just nine days after neighboring East Timor declared its independence from Portugal, Suharto ordered Indonesian forces to invade and annex the former colony. Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor was brutal, marked by atrocities such as the Santa Cruz massacre in 1991, when at least 270 pro-independence protesters were shot or beaten to death by the military.

“One of the enduring legacies of Suharto’s regime has been the culture that continues to block justice for victims of military abuses even today,” said Adams. “Maybe with Suharto’s passing, this legacy, too, can be brought to an end.”

A rare attempt at accountability for Suharto-era crimes occurred in trials held in 2004 against soldiers accused of participating in the “Tanjung Priok Massacre” in Jakarta two decades earlier. Yet the trials resulted in little justice for the families of the 33 or more civilians shot by government security forces during an anti-government demonstration. Two defendants were acquitted amid reports of political interference and witness intimidation. The remaining 12 defendants had their convictions overturned by an appeals court in June 2005.

Unquote

May they now find peace of some sort to enable them to now look to the future and not dwell to much on a lost opportunity to bring him to justice during his life on earth.

marshbags

[samtam]

It's good to see that things don't change too much. The late dictator Suharto will be accorded a state funeral. He was visited on his deathbed by the authoritarian ex-rulers (aka "prime ministers") of Singapore and Malaysia. It's always important to reward corruption, (he is alleged to be the largest "taker" in history), and mass murder, (between 500,000 to 1 million people). Beatification all around in Thailand then...

[marshbags]

It's good to see that things don't change too much. The late dictator Suharto will be accorded a state funeral. He was visited on his deathbed by the authoritarian ex-rulers (aka "prime ministers") of Singapore and Malaysia. It's always important to reward corruption, (he is alleged to be the largest "taker" in history), and mass murder, (between 500,000 to 1 million people). Beatification all around in Thailand then...

Beginning in October 1965, Suharto and his army organized and carried out what the C.I.A. described "as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century." Over the course of several months, they slaughtered members of the Indonesian communist party (PKI) along with members of loosely affiliated organizations such as women's group and labor unions.

Amnesty International estimated "many more than one million" killed. The head of the Indonesia state security system approximated the toll at half a million, with another 750,000 jailed or sent to concentration camps.

Marshal Green, American ambassador to Indonesia at the time, wrote that the embassy had "made clear" to the army that Washington was "generally sympathetic with and admiring" of its actions. Indeed, the United States had helped lay the groundwork for the coup through its support for the military, and through intelligence operations aimed at weakening the PKI and drawing the party into conflict with the army. Accordingly, Washington supplied weaponry, telecommunications equipment, as well as food and other aid to the army in the early weeks of the killings. The U.S. embassy also provided the names of thousands of PKI cadre who were subsequently executed.

This same military launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring East Timor on December 7, 1975. While meeting with Suharto the previous day in Indonesia's capital, then-president Gerald Ford and secretary of state Henry Kissinger approved of the invasion plans and the use of American weaponry, but asked Suharto to wait until they returned to the United States. About 14 hours after their departure, Indonesian forces attacked.

What followed was a war and occupation that cost over 200,000 East Timorese lives--about one-third of the pre-invasion population--and 24 years of American complicity in the slaughter. From the Ford administration to that of Clinton, the United States provided billions of dollars in military weaponry and training and economic assistance, as well as diplomatic cover to Jakarta.

Today, Suharto, in retirement, resides comfortably in Jakarta, and the brutal military he helped to build remains intact, free to commit atrocities throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Similarly, officials from the United States complicit with the 1965-66 slaughter and Indonesia's reign of terror in East Timor continue their lives unhindered. Not surprisingly, the United States and its Western allies--many of whom also actively supported Jakarta's crimes--have made it clear that they have no desire to see an international tribunal for Indonesia and East Timor established.

Comparing laws to spider webs, Anarchasis observed in the 6th century B.C. that laws catch the weak and poor, while the rich and powerful tear them to pieces. Although not always the case, the ancient philosopher has shown himself to be prophetic in the area of contemporary international affairs, a profoundly undemocratic arena in which the powerful demand accountability of their weaker enemies, while insulating themselves and their allies from prosecution.

Whatever we may call this, it is not justice.

Quoted from an article by Joseph Nevins an assistant professor of geography at Vassar College

Joseph Nevins is an assistant professor of geography at Vassar College USA. He is the author of A Not-So Distant Horror: Making and Accounting for Mass Violence in East Timor, which Cornell University Press will publish in early 2005.

marshbags

[GungaDin]

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

7 days of mourning and a state funeral for a mega thief, murderer of at least 500,000 in Papua & East Timor etc. etc.

Survived by the richest & corrupt siblings in S.E.A.

Oh, and Thailand has a new PM awaiting charges of corruption!

Only in SEA!

[Jai Dee]

HM the King sends royal letter of condolence to Indonesian President re death of former President Suharto

His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen yesterday saw fit to issue a royal letter of condolence and regret to current President of Indonesia Doctor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono over the passing of former Indonesian President General Suharto.

An unofficial translation of the royal letter states that His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen were regretfully informed of the passing of former President Suharto and expressed their condolences to Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the family of General Suharto.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 29 January 2008

[donna]

here in bali everything is going on as normal. the only thing i saw yesterday was, in the government offices i was visiting, the staff all sitting around drinking coffee watching the funeral on the telly.

[jackspratt]

HM the King sends royal letter of condolence to Indonesian President re death of former President Suharto

His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen yesterday saw fit to issue a royal letter of condolence and regret to current President of Indonesia Doctor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono over the passing of former Indonesian President General Suharto.

An unofficial translation of the royal letter states that His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen were regretfully informed of the passing of former President Suharto and expressed their condolences to Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the family of General Suharto.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 29 January 2008

No doubt all members of the club were saddened.

[samtam]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/as...ury-777103.html