THE CICAK.com

Why Indonesians loathe and mourn Suharto

By JEREMY MAHADEVAN

At the funeral of former Indonesian president Suharto on 27 Jan., current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presented a message of gratitude and respect on behalf of the nation, calling Suharto’s service “an example to us.”

In relation to Suharto’s reputation as one of the 20th century’s steeliest dictators, he said only that the ex-leader “made mistakes because no one is perfect.”

Yudhoyono himself owes much to Suharto’s time in power, during which the military (ABRI - Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia) was strengthened and reorganised to fulfill its dwifungsi (bi-function) as defender of the nation and custodian of socio-political development.

In no other South-East Asian nation is the military as formally and permanently entrenched in government, and this arrangement allowed Yudhoyono, a former general like Suharto, to rise through the ranks and assume the presidency.

Even within South-East Asia’s numerous and diverse cast of dictators, pseudo-democratic or otherwise, Suharto stands out by virtue of his influence, methods and philosophy.

Arguably, contemporary Indonesia enjoyed economic progress and relative stability thanks to his new order; as soon as he came into power he ended Indonesia’s pugnacious foreign policy, terminating his predecessor Sukarno’s policy of konfrontasi with Malaysia, participating in the founding of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and rejoining the United Nations, from which Indonesia had withdrawn due to the konfrontasi stand-off.

Suharto styled himself as a staunch anti-communist at a time when the U.S. was struggling with the Vietnam War, and his willingness to befriend western nations and Japan led to aid programs for Indonesia that eventually totalled close to US$10 billion a year.

Yet it is impossible to ignore the vast sums that slipped from the nation’s coffers into Suharto’s own pockets.

In September 2007 the United Nations and the World Bank placed him at the top of its list of kleptocrats; this came barely a week after Indonesia’s highest court ordered that TIME Magazine pay him US$106 million in damages for alleging that his family had built a US$15 billion hoard during his period in office.

The UN and World Bank estimated his ill-gotten gains to be between US$18 billion and US$42 billion.

Even more troubling is the heavy toll that his rule took in blood.

His rise to power came in the midst of violence; the official line is that in 1965 supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) launched an abortive coup against Sukarno and attempted to assassinate several anti-communist generals.

The actual circumstances of this incident remain controversial, however, with some suggesting that it was the result of a power struggle within the military that was subsequently blamed on the PKI; to this day it is unclear why Suharto, an anti-communist general at the time, was not targeted for assassination.

In the subsequent turmoil he tightened his grip on the nation, orchestrating a merciless crackdown against leftists, communists and communist sympathisers. Around 750,000 were arrested, and tens of thousands were detained without trial for up to 14 years.

The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that 300,000 Indonesians lost their lives, many of whom were ethnic Chinese, a group constantly stereotyped in Indonesia and Malaysia as communalist hoarders of wealth.

Sukarno was left effectively toothless in the wake of this mayhem, and after a decorous delay of three years Suharto officially succeeded him in 1968.

Suharto’s rule was dotted with further incidents of large-scale brutality. Estimates have it that in the early 1980s Army Special Forces formed to deal with dissent and crime killed 4,000 to 9,000 people.

In 1975, following Portugal’s hasty relinquishment of its overseas colonies, his government invaded East Timor.

According to a professor at Cornell University, 200,000 of East Timor’s 700,000-strong population were killed.

The effects of this were felt strongly in the late 1990s, during East Timor’s turbulent and bloody push towards independence after decades of annexation by Indonesia.

Unsurprisingly, following the Asian economic crisis of 1997, Suharto left office as he once assumed it, amidst tumult and cathartic bloodshed. As the Indonesian Rupiah spiralled downwards and the nation was forced to accept a humiliating rescue deal from the International Monetary Fund, Suharto exhorted the populace to tighten their belts while he took measures to safeguard his family fortune.

This fueled widespread discontent, which flared up in student riots that left hundreds dead. The mounting body count and the continuing economic slump eventually forced him to step down in May of 1998.

Suharto was charged with corruption in 2000, but the charges were dropped in 2006 on the grounds that his health was poor and he was mentally unfit to stand trial; this despite the fact that he was often photographed smilingly indulging in various outdoor pastimes. A civil corruption suit was brought against him in 2007 but never saw fruition due to his death.
The most striking thing about these efforts towards justice is their apparent half-heartedness. No attempt has been made to prosecute Suharto for the violence that characterised his rule, and now that he has died Indonesia seems unable to decide whether to honour or decry him. The country’s immense diversity means that different regional and ethnic groups feel his demise differently, being variously affected by his rule.

Even though this may explain the dividedness of the reaction to some degree, it is impossible to ignore the workings of a strange bond, almost a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, that can form between dictators and their subjects.

As with any other father-figure – every dictator is parental to some degree – Suharto left an indelible and often contradictory imprint on the minds of his people.

Oftentimes it is the case that the more brutal and unyielding the leader, the deeper the loathing and the firmer the attachment. As a young Indonesian scientist said of Suharto to the BBC recently: “There is a lot of resentment towards him but there is also a lot of mourning. He was the leader of our time, we cannot escape his importance to us.”

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JEREMY MAHADEVAN is a contributor for theCICAK.

Jeremy dislikes writing bios of himself, but will write one if asked nicely. Having somehow found himself with a master’s degree in political theory, he now stares blankly for a living. He lives in London, misses his stolen bicycle and knows only one thing with absolute certainty: that Radiohead is the greatest band ever. Yes, better even than the Beatles.