Unspun

Suharto the escape artist — or his detractors ineffective nags?


There are many Indonesians now who feel cheated that Suharto has gone to meet his maker before he could be held to account for his transgressions.

They are the type who would recall misdeeds perpetrated on themselves, their friends or their relatives from years ago. Fair enough. It looks like Suharto has managed to evade justice but the flip side of this equation is what the hell did the wronged ones do to force the governments after Suharto to bring the former dictator to account for his deeds?

They bellyached, they spoke to journalists when the opportunity arose and belleyached some more but on the whole they did not organize themselves – and those wronged by Suharto must be legion – into a political force to bedn the governments of Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati and SBY to their will.

They were content to gripe and not motivated or capable of making things happen in a focussed away. As such Suharto is the one that they let get away from them.

Suharto is today gone but justice can still be served. Suharto could not have perpetrated the deeds by himself. There must be military commanders that passed on Suharto’s orders to make people disappear among other misdeeds. There were people who gave orders and people who carried them out. Why have they not been brought to book until today?

Nietzsch spoke of justice being the spirit of revenge. Unspun thinks revenge is a bit of a waste of time, but the truth must be unraveled. Someone must speak for those countless victims of  repression and oppression, someone must let the light shine on these distardley deeds and the people who carried them out, if nothing else, to ensure that those who come after them will know that you cannot, or at least will find it very difficult, to  hide evil forever.

So what is to be the Suharto-wronged crowd? More bellyaching and achieve nothing, or organize yourselves, focus and get some results?

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5 responses to “Suharto the escape artist — or his detractors ineffective nags?”

  1. colson Avatar
    colson

    A fair enough column, I would say. The balancing act of securing justice, coming to terms with a country’s past, reconciling opposing parts of the population and vitalizing economy, after a prolonged totalitarian rule, proves to be hard however. In Indonesia as well as elsewhere in the world.

    In Chile, it took many years after the country had returned to democracy and only after the ex dictator Pinochet had died, before the “wronged crowd” over there could start to come clean with the bloody past. Maybe the “wronged crowd” in Indonesia, in cooperation with the enlightened vanguard, can look to the South American country for an effective example.

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  2. Achmad Sudarsono Avatar
    Achmad Sudarsono

    Hi Unspun,

    Congratulations on the wedding.

    Actually, to be honest, I think you’re missing the voice of the people in this column. What’s been amazing is the outpouring of respect for the “Smiling General,” whose grin seemed most charming before he was about to destroy someone’s position, career, or life.

    There seems to be a big disconnect between the commentators and the public – high and low. SBY’s declared a national week of mourning. Ordinary Indonesians say life was better under Soeharto.

    It seems mainly to be foreign journalists and academics who are using words like “brutal tyrant” regardless of how true they are not.

    Why the disconnect?

    That’s what I want to know.

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  3. unspun Avatar
    unspun

    @Achmad: Not all foreign journalists. Some do managed to get to grips with Suharto’s complexity (see the posting after this discussing an article by Jeremy Wagstaff) – but Shhhh! Don’t let Sheriff Dumbass hear this or he’ll get very confused. He thinks Unspun’s against white men.

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  4. Achmad Sudarsono Avatar
    Achmad Sudarsono

    Yes, a lovely piece by Jeremy.

    * WARNING *

    [Typical Achmad rant to follow]

    I just wish the rest of the commentary could get beyond good and evil.

    I don’t know why Soeharto’s such a lightning rod for kneejerk reactions and Western double standards. Some of the stuff he did was very similar to Julius Caesar, Elizabeth 1, and Napoloeon Bonaparte. (None of whom would get high scores from Amnesty International). Why do they get to be “great figures” and Soeharto gets to be “one of the most bloody and corrupt dictators of the 20th century” (NYT, Fox News).

    High body count from war and disease in East Timor. Even higher in the Vietnam War. High body count in American Civil War, 100 Years War, Australian Aboriginal community in last 200 years.

    But all this was complicated, the Western commentators say. What and ’65-’66 wasn’t ? Why does Western nation-building deserve nuance and sophistication, but countries like Indonesia and any number of African and South American States don’t ?

    Out on a limb here. The West outsources it’s war (anti-communism) to the likes of Soeharto and now many are unwillingly helping it launder its conscience. Massacres, genocide, human rights abuses, happen in nasty f–kd up places like Indonesia, goes the subconscious thinking, not in Manhattan. When it does, it dominates the news. For years.

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  5. Achmad Sudarsono Avatar
    Achmad Sudarsono

    P.S. – sorry about the rant.

    I just think there’s something sinister going on. You see, if people in the West/North/OECD demonize Soeharto, it makes them feel better, albeit subconsciously, about their own inhumanity. Soeharto was full of contradictions, all hidden behind that Javanese smile. The world’s not a nice place. No one was more aware of it than Indonesians in 1965.

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