Jakarta (AsiaNews) - A week of national mourning and flags at half staff for the man who kept Indonesia under military dictatorship for 32 years. This is the "farewell" that the authorities have decided to give to former president Suharto, who died yesterday at Pertamina hospital in Jakarta, where he had been hospitalised for three weeks. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, present today in the first row for the state funeral, asked the population to show "respect" for the man who rendered a "great service" to the nation. And thousands crowded the streets of Solo, a province in central Java, to attend ceremonies for the politician held in his family mausoleum.
The death of Suharto, who in 1975 ordered the invasion of East Timor, and who was accused of corruption and the embezzlement of huge sums of money, has seen many local and regional leaders unanimously recognise his political value: he brought Indonesia into the United Nations; he normalised relations with Malaysia (against which his predecessor, Sukarno, had declared war for the control of Borneo); he fostered the inclusion of Indonesia in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and attracted foreign investment, advancing the economic development of the vast archipelago. But Suharto, who died at the age of 86, left a more burdensome legacy, which Indonesia seems unwilling to face. The former president exploited the country's growth to enrich his own family and associates through a string of state monopolies, subsidies, and illegal mechanisms. In 2000, two years after he was forced to resign, he was put under investigation for having embezzled 600 million dollars in state funds, but the proceedings against him were suspended for "health reasons". He was never tried, not even for the human rights violations and abuses committed while he was in power, which he is thought to have ordered.
A large portion of the Indonesian political elite had pressed for Suharto to be "pardoned" for humanitarian reasons. According to analysts, the general attitude of compassion and admiration shown toward him during the last weeks of his life demonstrate the existence of strong interest on the part of the country's leaders in avoiding a confrontation with a past that is still too relevant. The experts point to deep-rooted problems that for ten years even the new democratic regime has been unable to solve: widespread corruption; the excessive power held by the army, which continues to protect its interests even after leaving public office, with no oversight by any civilian body; political interference in the judicial system, and the resulting failures of this system in protecting the rights of ordinary citizens.