Some people are in a forgiving mood as former president Suharto nears death.
As Suharto nears death, with never-ending media reports of “condition improving”/”condition worsening”, and as his grave is prepared, suarapembaruan the question of the stalled but outstanding legal case against Suharto concerning stolen national assets has been repeatedly raised.

Hidayat Nur Wahid
Some, such as parliament speaker Hidayat Nurwahid, insist that Suharto continue to be prosecuted, given that Indonesia is a country based on law. tempo
Many others however, such as former “Reformasi” firebrand Amien Rais, recommend that the government and people forgive Suharto entirely, and end investigation and prosecution of him.

Amien Rais.
Reading out a statement in Yogyakarta on the 14th Amien said that in the early days many people did not criticise Suharto’s leadership or attempt to thwart his ambitions, to the point where he eventually became all-powerful, and therefore many people in the country bore some responsibility for Suharto’s deeds.
No-one dared say no to him.
Amien hoped that in future people would be more critical of their leaders, so that there would never again be a figure such as Soeharto, as well as his predecessor Soekarno. tempo
Meanwhile President SBY, standing in the middle as usual, asked everyone to just stop talking about the issue, at least until Suharto was dead waspada and the epitaphs had been written.
Let us stop all debates and arguments as they are unwise and improper at this time.
Suharto had done much good for the country, SBY said:
Despite some shortcomings, we still need to show him the respect and gratitude he deserves.
This article in bahasa Indonesia – Pengampunan Pak Harto.
Not really Oigal
Is that a yes or a no? Not that an answer is required..your tone betrays you..feeling bit guilty are we?
Oigal Robert, your silence is deafening. Discussion a little out of your league No not really..really getting to you hey Assmad..you’re slipping!
mildy amusing in a gruesome sort of way watching you try and defend the indefensible, however you are well past the stage of deserving a rational debate.
Unfortunately unlike yourself I have seen and had to deal first hand with aftermath of the monster’s thugs. The real world is much uglier than your slavering, whitewashed and ultimately misplaced devotion to your paymaster and orgins.
“You admit that the development made the lives of “millions of Indonesians better.”
or You admit that the development made the lives of “millions of Indonesians dead.” ‘
BTW…Miner…not even close
Folks — I rest my case.
Oigal has nothing to say on the substance of the debate, that is:
Indonesia had 32 years of on average 7 percent economic growth, yielding massive improvements in life expectancy, literacy, falls in poverty and rises in prosperity.
No one’s saying Suharto wasn’t a ruthless and corrupt bastard. I’m saying something much more disturbing.
Firstly, I’m saying that Suharto delivered the goods for most Indonesians.
Secondly, I’m saying, if you know what happenend in ’65-’66, tell us. Oh, it’s millions, now Oigal. Funny that, conservative estimates put it at about a million.
Once again:
No answer on the central argument: economic growth improved the lives of most Indonesians for 32 years.
No answer, yet Oigal.
Rambutan,
Because I think something happened that no Indonesians want to accept. The TNI participated in the killings. I suspect that the generals regarded it as a pre-emptive strike in a potential civil war. Doesn’t excuse them, just explains it. SBY’s father in law Sarwo Edhie was a tank commander in Central Java, for example.
I suspect the real story is that ’65-’66 was a case of neighbour killing neighbour and villager killing villager. I think it was Croatia-style, Rwanda style. I suspect it was a horizontal conflict.
I don’t buy Cribb’s assessment because there wasn’t enough written material from ’65-’66 and he wrote that thing well before Reformasi. Even now it’s hard to get people to talk.
Ie.
“Hey Mohammad, I’m a historian and a Bule. Can you tell me in careful and slow language how you beheaded your childhood friends with a machete 40 years ago?”….
See ?
I think the question should be, does economic growth that contributed to improved lives of most Indonesians justify continuous gross human rights abuses?
I suspect the real story is that ’65-’66 was a case of neighbour killing neighbour and villager killing villager. I think it was Croatia-style, Rwanda style. I suspect it was a horizontal conflict.
Yes, there are accounts of such things. Especially NU kyais who felt threatened by PKI support for land reform used the opportunity to get rid of the communists altogether. But I find it hard to believe that this is the only reason and that the killings conveniently broke out all over Java and Bali after the attempted coup in Jakarta. Moreover, the conflict was mainly ideological and lacked the strong ethnic cleavages you had in Croatia or Rwanda. Cribb’s explanation that the army encouraged supported those groups to do the dirty job seems more plausible. TNI supported the killings with intelligence, logistics, etc. A similar approach – waging war through proxies – was used in Timor and Aceh so it appears to be a ‘tried and true’ TNI formula.
Rambutan,
Lives of some versus lives of others, well that’s the question. The other question is what was the alternative. How’s this for another scenario: if Indonesia had continued under Sukarno and faced massive famine and 0% economic growth for X years, would it be a ‘better’ situation.
Hard to answer these questions.
Oigal et al, of course, aren’t even trying. They’re too busy caught up in their middle class jerk-off sessions.
Achmad: sorry for not replying – I was too busy caught up with my middle-class bule jerk-off life.
I am pretty impressed with the discussion that’s gone on, but still really don’t understand why the Government should abandon the civil proceedings. I’m not saying it’s wrong or right (it’s not my place to), I would just like to understand why.
Brett,
That’s ok. People like me are caught up in their Pribumi (Indonesian) jerk-off life.
I don’t think many people want to drop the civil proceedings. Alot of those calling people to forgive Suharto want the trial to go ahead, if only (they think) to clear his name.
He is, after all, on civil charges. Criminal charges were only dropped due to ill health.
Tsk Tsk..Still name calling..ah come on you can do better than that Assmad..
besides the name calling, factually flawed blanket wank defences aka “at least the trains ran on time” hard to face up to huh..as I said your orgins are showing.
32 years of on average 7 percent economic growth, yielding massive improvements in life expectancy, literacy, falls in poverty and rises in prosperity. ….for some (and even that little rosy recollection is somewhat dubious)
For others most (?)..trans migration=cultural genocide, thousands missing, hundreds of thousands/millions murdered.
Although (and this is not for you Assmad) personally I think its waste of time dwelling on the old bastard, he’s finished and what was done was done and not much to be gained by wasting any more effort on him.
What is sad is the conga line of suck holes lining up to pay tribute, one would have hoped that democracy and respect for human dignity had taken firmer hold in modern Indonesia and any self respecting leader would not be seen within a country mile of people like him..then again guess not.
Law enforcement must GO ON, but forgiveness is indeed a noble morality. As a leader, he has to responsible for what he had done in the past. Yet his achievements should be credited too. He has a good side as well as the dark. So do we.
So what IS going to happen when the “old bugger”* finally bites the bullet?
*attribute good humoured familiarity OR derisive abusiveness according to reader’s personal preference.
Achmad,
Oigal, Robert, your silence is deafening. Discussion a little out of your league ?
No not really, I just turn silent when people are justifying human rights violations by economic achievements.
As for you Robert: how ’bout a quick summary of what happened in ’65 and who was responsible. And please, no Hitler arguments. Plenty of other monsters about. Historians just don’t know yet what happened. We know alot of a people died. We know there was communal bloodletting. We know the army was involved, but who, how, what, when, we don’t.
I agree with you that the situation is murky and lot of things haven’t been cleared up until the present day. I noticed you dismissed Robert Cribb’s account of the ’65/66 events. You say there weren’t enough written materials about the ’65/66 period. In spite of this Robert Cribb managed to do some extensive research on this subject and shed some light on the situation. I am wondering though, what kind of account would actually meet your approval.
I didn’t use Hitler as an argument to explain the ’65/66 events, I used it to explain your attitude towards Suharto. It is the same that many Germans had after the WW2. I could have used Pinochet as well. It is the same old story: dictator/human rights violator who gets the economy back on the track and his followers who subsequently turn a blind eye on the crimes committed.
Secondly, what would you have done as the President of Indonesia in 1965 ?
You make it sound like the massacre was kind of inevitable and all those people had to be killed. Getting the PKI people jailed wasn’t an option then? Suharto did have a choice, he could have put an end to the rage that was sweeping through Indonesia and thus save the lives of lots of innocent people who had nothing to do with the coup.
Lives of some versus lives of others, well that’s the question. The other question is what was the alternative. How’s this for another scenario: if Indonesia had continued under Sukarno and faced massive famine and 0% economic growth for X years, would it be a ‘better’ situation.
No the situation would have been very bad and would probably have led to a rebellion. Now this rebellion was jumpstarted by the events of 30 September ’65. That something would have happened is obvious. It was just a matter of time.
Nobody will deny that the Indonesian economy was thriving during the Suharto era, no doubt about that. It is just the fact that the transition from the Sukarno to Suharto regime was so violent and this bugs a lot of people.
You make it sound like the massacre was kind of inevitable and all those people had to be killed. Getting the PKI people jailed wasn’t an option then? Suharto did have a choice, he could have put an end to the rage that was sweeping through Indonesia and thus save the lives of lots of innocent people who had nothing to do with the coup.
In 1965/1966 famine was widespread and Pak Harto Wisdom decided to prioritize the food for the non-PKI people while reducing the food burden for the state so Pak Harto let the natural law to work and it does happen like anywhere in this world . It was a matter of the power struggle between the communist people and the non-communist people let me make it clear (People against People). In China, Vietnam and Cambodia the communist won the conflict and they slaughtered the non-communist people whereas in here the non-communist won the conflict and we slaughtered the communist people so what is different? Was there any Criminal Charge against Mao Tse Dong and Kim-Jung iL who let more than millions of their own people starving to death? If you are outsider better you stay away from our internal affair because we know exactly how to keep our conflict still enjoyable for our life.
I don’t know why the focus is on 65 and 66. Sarwo Edi, the presidents father in law said that he and his men slaughtered almost 3 million people during that time. I don’t know if I believe him, but that’s kind of a lot…. HOWEVER>.. it has nothing to do with the case about soeharto…..
I can’t understand what any of this has to do with what good soeharto has done or not while he was in power. it’s a simple case of the law. you can’t pay the time, don’t do the crime. it should be blanket law for everyone…. the public doesn’t get to decide, achmad sudarsono doesn’t get to decide. it’s the law that should decide.
it reminds me of nobel peace prizes…. like yasser arafat… blow up as many people as you can, wreak havoc on the free world and then if you stop blowing people up, you get the nobel peace prize! Coolies!
maybe soeharto should get one too, for his (if indeed it was due to him alone) 7% economic growth? YOu miss him MadSon?
I remember whole villages wouldn’t get school, electricity or roads if they were PDI supporters…. I remember plenty of poor people… now everyone in my village has a motor bike… in those days they could barely afford to eat more than rice and sambal. YOu want him back? then you, my good sir are in bubble…..just as indonesia was during the soeharto years.
outsider better you stay away from our internal affair because we know exactly how to keep our conflict still enjoyable for our life
Is there an English version for this?
Robert, Oigal,
History, Facts, and 1965.
Basic objection: there’s massive hypocrisy towards Soeharto. He’s held to higher standards than Western leaders and was in a much worse situation.
When we talk about Australian history and genocide, for example or, say George Bush’s role in the fraudulent excuse for invading Iraq the precise facts suddenly become very important.
In Iraq, civilian deaths are well over 150,000 – and counting. For what ? Either a bit mistake from US intelligence analysts or a lie. Is George Bush a war criminal ? John Howard ? Who signed what, where, when, how, and who was involved, exactly what did the accused do.
For Oigal, when discussing the history of Australia’s relations with its aboriginal population, and whether or not there was a genocide the factsare very important. Again, who, where, what, how, and what was done, please, exactly ? Facts.
Somehow, with Soeharto’s legacy the facts don’t seem to be important. Robert Cribb just didn’t have the freedom to do the research needed as he was writing in 1989-1990 during the New Order. Since 1998, there’s an emerging body of work in Bahasa Indonesia on what happened.
Can you read Bahasa Indonesia ? If you can’t you just aren’t up with 90 % of the new stuff out there, including uni thesis, interviews with victims, research findings by an NGO involved with the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
So once again, I ask you, who did what to whom, when, and how. Exactly what did Soeharto do during 1965-66 ? Where’s the evidence? Do you have it ? Do you know someone who has it ? Can you share ? I want to know, I really do.
The Economic Legacy
I’m sorry, Robert. For the poor of Indonesia, who became much less poor from 1966-1998, the economy is a human rights issue. Economic questions determine whether or not your wife dies in childbirth, you can feed your child when it’s born, whether you and the village have enough to eat.
I haven’t heard either you or Oigal once mention the Green Revolution, for example, because I don’t think you’ve heard of it. I haven’t heard you talk about the control of 600% inflation overall and 1000% inflation in rice prices in 1965-66 because you haven’t heard of it.
You’ve never been short of food.
None of these “basic entitlements” as Amartya Sen would call them were guaranteed under Soekarno. But the human development index (HDI) got better under Soeharto, to the best of our knowledge.
Economic growth’s not just a number. It’s the collective choice of a nation.
Yes, the economy collapsed in 1997-98 here, worse than many other parts of Asia. But 7 or so years of economic recovery vs 32 years of economic boom, I’d say Indonesia was in the black (coming out ahead).
Soeharto’s Court Case.
Well, Janma, you’re a lawyer now, I see. But we’re in agreement. The law should be served. To the letter. And apparently, by being sick, under Indonesian law, Soeharto is exempt from a criminal trial.
You wanted law. Now you got it. The Attorney General ruled that he wasn’t fit to stand for a criminal trial.
Or did you want justice ? Being a simple ukuele player, I don’t quite understand the difference between justice and the law, but I think they’re different things in most countries, including Australia and the US.
Dick and Harry.
_______________________
P.S. Oigal “” good one. Insult Cukurang’s English. How’s this “” why don’t you write a post in Bahasa Indonesia?
P.S. Oigal “” good one. Insult Cukurang’s English. How’s this “” why don’t you write a post in Bahasa Indonesia?
Friend, no one can insult me because I have nothing in this world except the insult itself.
Assmad..What on earth makes you think someone like even deserves a response..although in all the pouting, postering, misdirecting fluff you did come up with one undeniable fact
because I don’t think and I fully concur. However because I have few minutes to play with tainted..
Can you read Bahasa Indonesia yep thanks not a bad hard with German as well
Can you share ? Sorry wouldn’t share the smell of a bad fart with the like so you
I want to know, I really do. You already do that’s what hurts so much doesn’t my fraudlent WOS
You’ve never been short of food. Actually…OH never mind ..in the meantime POT THIS KETTLE
Assmad, your continued rants on this demostrate one of two things, 1. You just trying the “provoke the posters” at the expense and memory of a lot of people’s suffering or 2. You are indeed a product of the “bastards inc” that caused so much suffering in this country so a few could prosper..no matter 1 or 2 the evaulation remains the same.
As for CUK’s english..It seriously was not an insult, I really don’t understand the sentence or what he is trying to say
As for CUK’s english..It seriously was not an insult, I really don’t understand the sentence or what he is trying to say
Sorry for my bad English and to show you that I am so serious I will share with you my little secret. Once day, I bought an English Cassette Lesson to help me for improving my English but it was not working at all because when I was starting to turn on the cassette and the female bule was sounding an instruction in English…oh My Gun…I just could not hear anything and automatically my memory was playing back my socking experience when the first time I saw the female bule was voicing oh no oh ye oh no oh yes in XXX Video.
Dear All,
Earlier prediction vindicated. I said Oigal wouldn’t address the central questions I posed and he didn’t:
* Soeharto’s legacy presents an “inconvenient truth” — lives for most Indonesians got better under him from 1966-1998. That’s most Indonesians, Oigal. You might not like him or how he did it, but the Iron Rice bowl delivered.
* You might think that because of “what he did” he’s a despot and tyrant. So in the worst alleged human rights abuse, 1965-1966 — what exactly did happen ? What are the facts, Oigal ? What happened ? Exactly ? Don’t know ? Very basically — 50 words or less.
Is it unreasonable to ask for your view of the facts ? Does that make me an Assmad ?
Janma,
On forgiveness, well, talk to people like Suciwati (Munir’s widow), A.M. Fatwa (imprisoned under the regime) & others wronged. They say they want to forgive.
I’m not swanning around calling for anything. You said you wanted the law. Well, the law’s been served. The Attorney General of Indonesia ruled Soeharto was too sick to stand for a criminal trial. Now they’re trying for a civil trial.
I’m all for the law.
I just want to know what Soeharto critics on this thread think the facts are when it comes to human rights abuses.
Just the known facts.
If that’s unreasonable, well that says something.
i think he meant that since you are not indonesian, (outsider) therefore don’t comment on any Indonesian affairs”¦. (weird really because this is an english language forum on matters Indonesian, so if you didn’t want outsiders (ie English speakers) to comment, then maybe the forum should be in Indonesian? And he topped it off by saying that actually he (and by inference, all indonesians”¦) love the conflict and it makes their lives more enjoyable.
Thank Mom, you understood the English style came from the singkong brain but you made a little ballooning because I never forbid anyone to comment in this forum as long as it is in line with Pancasila.
Folks,
Check this out: !!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/wl_nm/timor_suharto_dc_1
East Timor President Asks Nation to Forgive Suharto
By Tito Belo 20 minutes ago
DILI (Reuters) – East Timor’s president urged Timorese to pray for Suharto, the former Indonesian president who ordered the brutal invasion of East Timor in 1975 and who now lies critically ill in hospital.
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Suharto, now 86, who ruled Indonesia for more than three decades, has been fighting for his life for nearly two weeks, and is now on a ventilator following multiple organ failure.
Doctors treating Suharto in a Jakarta hospital appeared less optimistic on Thursday than a day earlier and said he was still on a ventilator, with signs of systemic infection persisting.
With Suharto now so sick, his legacy is being widely discussed. His rule was marked by rapid economic growth and political stability, but was also marred by massacres, human rights abuses, and endemic corruption.
“It is impossible for us to forget the past, but East Timor should forgive him before he dies and I ask people to pray for Suharto as former president of Indonesia,” said East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, some of whose family were killed during the occupation.
East Timor suffered heavily under Indonesia’s rule, and only won independence after Suharto was forced to step down in 1998.
Sorry Assmad you blew it a long time ago, if I thought for minute you were serious I would entertain your little perverse view of the world and actually prepare a response but as you are basically little more than a spoilt little twat who things its amusing to make fun of other suffering you are not worth the effort alththough it has been amusing to watch you spin your wheels in the sand.
However, to be fair the whole thread is a bit of a wank as no-one seriously believes that legal action civil or otherwise will be successful, too many people (Assmad ?) owe their position today to his patronage. That coupled with the usual tendancy to address any potential embarrassing issue by ignoring it (a variation of the “I’m ok Jack ..Screw You principle of life) means nothing will ever be done.
Of course, from a purely selfish point of view, this does have its advantages, as long as Indonesia refuses to address any of the systematic corruption, abysmal education system, nepotism and patronage there will always be jobs for us loud mouth bules at grossly unfair salaries. But hey don’t blame the Bule..Indonesia has had 60 years to figure it out and it has not happened yet.
Anyway..despite the mild fun baiting you..its time I wandered back to the sanity of the stump…see ya
Oigal,
Actually it’s Mick – some of the time.
But like I said:
Why so many calls for forgiveness of Soeharto ? Why ?
What do you think actually happened in ’65-66 ?
50 words or less, is that so hard ?
Facts.
Here are some:
Average of 7 percent economic growth for 32 years.
Life expectancy up by 20 years.
Increases in food security, employment and per capita income.
Financial crisis, yes, a setback, but the foundations are there. Building a country is hard, Oigal, just ask any of the Australian Aborigines who have life expectancies similar to Africa.
Dick, Harry, Mick, Chris, Paul, Mick, Assmad, but always, Achmad Sudarsono.
Whats with the constant reference to Aborgines you are not reviving that old rumour that Pak Soeharto was part Aborginal are you and as such Australia has rightful claim to his legacy…(and all those millions…)?
Sorry Timmy boy..I read this bit written by some idiot about how to sucker people into a debate..so I don’t wanna play unless its by my rules..Just for fun, why don’t you put up some estimated death tolls, the life expectancy rate for the East Timorese during the occupation or perhaps Papua right now..just for some balance and all in amongst all your facts??? Or are we just doing what’s good for JAVA only thing?
Ok.
I will if you will.
But wasn’t I a “sarong-wearing dyke” slurping from teh public teat ?
To humor you:
I think the death toll in East Timor was about 250,000-300,000 during an invasion sanctioned by both U.S. and Australian governments. Gough Whitlam, I think was the one who said, “we don’t want a Cuba on our doorstep.”
Some of the death toll was directly from the invasion, according to different historians. Some, such as Dino Djalal, SBY’s spokesman, claim many of the deaths were from disruption of production due to the war.
On ET’s life expectancy during the occupation, well in 1976, aside from the war, demographic factors alone that would have been a result of Portuguese rule.
On Papua: don’t know — what occupation ? It’s population according to Wikipedia in 2005 was: 2,795,182 (2005), that’s maybe 1.5 % of Indonesia’s population.
Your turn.
Jeeezzzzz Achmad! Look at his family nowadays and how they could live with luxurious life without doing much. Those economic growth was nothing as it was enjoyed by certain groups of people closed to Suharto, not by us, the common folks. Suharto had been crowned internationally as the most corrupted leader in the world (just google “the most corrupted leader and you will find Muhammad Suharto is always ranked as the first list i.e. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0921295.html).
And please remember how Suharto was monitoring the mass media during his regime. We (Indonesians who lived in Indonesia during that time) were basically not well-informed of what was really going on in other islands. Who would know if there were malnutrition, famine and poverty in certain isolated area in Indonesia during Suharto’s era with such information restriction? We were manipulated through the state propaganda in mass media during Suharto by calling debt from World Bank as “hibah” that means the international world had trusted Indonesia and we should be proud of it. We had to be proud to have debt! Huge debt! And of course some of money were also used for Golkar’s campaign. Guess WB must be familiar with this.. And not to mention that many activists (whom probably) died and their bodies remained missing until at present. bah!
And of course there is no clear evidence since there is no independent investigation on Suharto’s state crime, political crime or state-corporate crime. But hey, no one knows what was exactly happened in the former Yugoslavia or in Rwanda or in Sierra Leone until there is independent investigation team to gather the evidence. And look at the result now, independent tribunal is existed to trial those criminals – although they were high-ranked politicians or state officials. What we need is sufficient independent investigation towards Suharto. Many books on Indonesia during Suharto’s years were written under incredible research and investigation already.
If we can not drag him into trial in Indonesia, why not proposed his crime to be on trial by the ICC in the Hague (see http://www.insideindonesia.org/edit55/genoc.htm). I am wondering if this is possible.
I am a generation who was born and raised during Suharto’s regime and I am not proud of him. It makes me feel sick seeing people begging for Suharto’s forgiveness like dogs begging for foods (the different is that the dogs look cute). There is no need to forgive him if he were innocent, toh?
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Why don’t you buy Cribb’s account? Any specific reasons? Don’t you think his research is credible? You don’t seem to deny that the massacre happened, so what would be your version of the incidents? And whose account then are you actually buying? TNI’s??
Anyway, the question of other human rights abuses in Timor, Aceh, Papua remains. Those largely happened when his regime was stabilised and he was firmly in power. Here you cannot argue that circumstances forced him to use violent means as you did for 1965/66.
So, despite the Suharto regime’s successes in bringing about growth and development and a better lives for millions (I don’t know how many millions), he still has blood on his hands. He is responsible for numerous human rights violations and the deaths of hundreds and thousands of people.
The killings are part of Suharto’s legacy – emphasis here is on part! But in the end a crime remains a crime, even if it was done for the ‘greater good’ of the nations.