President Suharto: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, has died aged 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 spring 1998.
Like many Javanese, Suharto went by only one name. During his rule, he expanded Indonesia's territory by force, annexing 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 his regime "vary from 300,000 to two million, but the exact number nobody knows," according to Asmara Nababan, former secretary general of Indonesia's Human Rights Commission.
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 democratic reforms. In one of the most significant steps of the post-Suharto era, government power was decentralised. Conflicts in East Timor and Aceh have been resolved. East Timor was granted independence; guerrillas in Aceh laid down their arms in exchange for autonomy for the province, a deal forged after the devastating 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 crushed Indonesia's Communist Party and suppressed Islamic extremists, forcing the most militant clerics into exile.
During his rule, Suharto stimulated growth, cutting the inflation rate from 600 per cent to 6.5 per cent 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 per cent to 12 per cent and literacy rates and average life spans rose. At the same time, he divvied up the nation's wealth among his six children and cronies, amassing a family fortune estimated at $40 billion.
Suharto was born on June 8th, 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.
Suharto's family was so poor it could not afford to buy basic supplies he needed for school, forcing him to quit. He later finished his education at 18 in a school run by an Islamic group.
His first job was as a bank clerk. Riding his bicycle to work one day, he ripped his sarong, the traditional Javanese garment required at his office. Too poor to buy another, he lost his job. Nine months later, he enlisted in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, but that position ended quickly. In 1942, the ruling Dutch surrendered to Japan. With the departure of Japanese forces after the second World War, 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. In 1964, he told the US 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. Suharto was not among the victims, although he was a major general and key army leader. Observers speculated he was involved in the coup, which was blamed on the Communists, yet it was Suharto who crushed the revolt.
He then outmanoeuvred Sukarno and placed him under house arrest from 1966 until his death in 1970. Appointed acting president in 1967, Suharto moved to consolidate his newfound power, clearing the military and civil service of leftists in a bloody purge that won him the support of US 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.
Suharto plundered Indonesia's natural resources, set trade policies to benefit his empire, gave his cronies control of banks and sold off the country's assets. By 1997, Indonesia's economy was too fragile to survive the region's economic collapse.
Small student demonstrations started in February 1998, calling for economic and political reform. The protests grew, attracting professionals and academics. The shooting of six students by security forces in Jakarta on May 12th, 1998, sparked riots that claimed 500 lives. Nine days later, Suharto announced his resignation. Suharto's wife, Siti Hartinah, died in 1996. He is survived by three sons and three daughters.
Suharto: Born June 8th, 1921; died January 27th, 2008