When General Suharto, who ruled the largest Muslim country, Indonesia, with an iron hand for 32 long years until May 1998, died last Sunday, negative references to his time at the helm dominated the news though he is credited with presiding over an impressive economic growth.
Even his daughter who broke the news outside the former dictator's hospital asked forgiveness on behalf of the family. Said she, "We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them... May he be absolved of all his mistakes." Suharto was not prosecuted for his 'faults' and 'mistakes' due to health problems, yet ten years after he stepped down from power no one seems to have forgotten or forgiven his massive corruption (his family is alleged to have embezzled $600 million using his position), bloody repression and other wrong-doings.
Suharto, as his track record shows, was a soldier of fortune who cared little about his place in history. He displaced President Soekarno - a charismatic leader, hero of Indonesian independence struggle, and one of the founding fathers of the Non-aligned Movement - in extraordinary circumstances. He was chief of Indonesian Army's elite Strategic Reserve Command in September 1965 when a coup plot unfolded over the next several months, triggering violence between the communist party activists and the army that claimed the lives of as many as a million communists and their sympathisers.
Many more were killed in the ensuing disorder that pitted Indonesians against one another along class and ethnic lines. Suharto finally assumed power as president in March 1966.
People, of course, tend to view the reasons behind the bloody events leading to his presidency through an ideological prism. Yet irrespective of the ideological divide of the time, for ordinary Indonesians it may be difficult to absolve Suharto of the responsibility for what is known as one of the twentieth century's biggest massacres.
Interestingly, soon after taking over Suharto invited US trained economists to launch his "New Order," installing himself as the "Father of Development," which for many in this country would be reminiscent of our own military ruler of the yore, Field Marshal Ayub Khan's 'Decade of Development'.
Like in our case, the Indonesian dictator was helped by liberal US aid, while he had the added advantage of increasing oil revenues to start an ambitious infrastructure programme. For several years, the growth rate figures remained steady at around 7-8 percent. That surely looked impressive, but not so considering the manner in which the economy took a tumble at the hint of a crisis that hit Asian Tigers in 1997.
Suharto was a living testimony of the saying 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'. He allowed his wife and six children to exploit development projects to ask for kick-offs. Like some other military-backed dictators before, during, and after his time, he created a façade of democracy, holding elections every five years and winning with predictable regularity each time.
He suppressed human rights and civil liberties, curbed press freedom and judicial independence. Political parties except his own Golkar Party were banned. And last but not the least, like others of his ilk, in 1975 Suharto also embarked on a military adventure, invading and occupying East Timor, which led to a protracted armed resistance. Indonesia was forced to withdraw from the territory a little over two decades later under humiliating international pressure.
As history has shown time and again, personal rule cannot last forever. Economic hardships of 1997 proved to be the proverbial last straw on the camel's back. The people rose in protest, and the state machinery cracked down, killing more than a 1000 people. Seeing the writing on the wall all of Suharto's political allies and cronies gradually abandoned him, forcing him to call it a day. He lived for another ten years, going by the public plea of his daughter, haunted by his 'faults' and 'mistakes.' But to what use?