The Independent: Suharto: 'One of the greatest mass murderers of the 20th
century'
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Akankah kita lupakan ratusan ribu (jutaan?) manusia
yang mati dibunuh serdadu dan orang islam selama
Soeharto berkuasa?
Yang kudu diingat dengan Soeharto ini bukan hanya
nepostisme dan korupsinya, tapi kbiadabannya.
---------
Independent.co.uk
Suharto: 'One of the greatest mass murderers of the
20th century'
When General Suharto came to power in 1965 he
overthrew the grandfather of journalist Chris Kline,
who explains here why he will not mourn the death of
Indonesia's dictator
But when it came time for photographs, and Suharto
picked me up, I shouted for him to put me down, and
began punching him while he awkwardly kept smiling. I
called out that he was a uomo cattivo, a bad man.
Millions of Indonesians who thought the same would
never have dared to say so aloud.
Why did Suharto permit this? Because I am the American
grandson of the founder of modern Indonesia, Sukarno.
General Suharto (both men, like many Indonesians, are
known by only one name) overthrew him in a
blood-soaked coup in 1965, covertly aided and
enthusiastically abetted by the US, Britain and
Australia.
I was just two when Suharto unleashed his New Order,
living in Europe with my American father, Frank
Latimore, and my Indonesian mother, Rukmini Sukarno.
He was a Hollywood and Broadway actor, she was a
European opera diva. We were far from Indonesia, home
to a fifth of the worlds natural resources, which my
grandfather led to independence after a long
liberation struggle against colonial rule by the
Netherlands. But we were not free from Suhartos
dictatorship.
Much of my family that hadnt been purged after the
coup remained in Indonesia, where Suharto held them
hostage. Some in the family changed sides willingly,
but for the sake of national unity, and out of fear
of retaliation, the rest of us had to play along, even
if we lived in exile. It was particularly loathsome
for my mother, haunted all her life by the fate of her
cousin, Brigadier General Sabur, who was slowly hacked
to death in one of Suhartos dungeons.
So I will not mourn Suharto. His death is some small
measure of justice, far too late, for all those he
killed during nearly 32 years as the absolute dictator
of the worlds fourth most populous nation, and
largest Muslim country. And until he fell in 1998,
Suharto enjoyed Western support.
Sukarno, a fiery nationalist, was one of the key
architects of the Non-Aligned Movement. The Cold War
was at its height, the US was escalating its role in
Vietnam, and the domino theory held sway.
Indonesias Communist Party, the PKI, then the third
largest in the world, openly declared it would arm
itself as a rival force to the Indonesian military.
Sukarno, rightly or wrongly, was regarded as a
crypto-Marxist who would empower the PKI further. He
told America and Britain to go to hell; clearly his
days were numbered.
The military and intelligence attachés in the US and
British embassies were sending helpful death lists to
the Indonesian high command when Suharto struck. In
the midst of the mass executions, the British
ambassador, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, sent a chilling
telegram to London, saying: I have never concealed
from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia
would be an essential preliminary to effective
change.
Time magazine described the horrors Gilchrist so
calmly endorsed: The killings have been on such a
scale the disposal of corpses has created a serious
sanitation problem in east Java and northern Sumatra,
where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh.
Travellers from those areas tell of small rivers and
streams that have been literally clogged with bodies.
At least 500,000 Indonesians died violently in the
months following the takeover, but studies suggest the
figure might have been between a million and two
million.
A decade later, again with a green light from
Washington, London and Canberra, as many as 230,000
more people, or a third of the civilian population of
East Timor, died when Suharto invaded the former
Portuguese colony. Australia monitored busy Indonesian
military radio traffic in the build-up, but said
nothing. As Suhartos marines and paratroopers
conquered the territory, a satisfied CIA internal
communiqué stated: Without continued heavy US
logistical, military support the Indonesians might not
have been able to pull it off.
The man who has just died in Jakarta is one of the
greatest mass murderers of the 20th century, but he
was never indicted by the International War Crimes
Tribunal at The Hague. Throughout, Suharto received
all the weaponry his brutal military wanted. Britain
sold him Scorpion armoured vehicles and Spartan troop
carriers after a thorough assessment that they would
not be used for internal repression, according to
the then Defence Secretary, Michael Heseltine.
Curious, then, how they turned up on the streets to
hold back angry crowds demanding change.
Suhartos advocates claim he modernised Indonesia and
returned the country to the community of nations.
Indonesia is now praised as the third-largest
democracy on the planet, which has resisted Islamist
radicalisation. But what of the estimated $15bn to
$30bn Suharto plundered, while 49 million of his
people survive on less than $2 a day, deprived of
primary education and basic medical care? If Indonesia
has moved forward at all, it is despite Suharto, not
because of him.
I have visited many countries as a foreign
correspondent for CNN and Fox, but all my life I have
been excluded from Indonesia, because of Suharto. Now
that he is gone, I will be able to embrace my own
heritage at last. And the man who overthrew my
grandfather will take his place beside Pol Pot,
Pinochet, Milosevic, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao and all the
other great murderers of their own people.
Chris Kline is an international print and broadcast
journalist
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