However, to hear the press cover it, you'd think that the US only reluctantly kept this guy on the payroll as long as he was, and that somehow, despite his massacre of the East Timorese (which the press never covered very well, hence many people today don't even realize that Suharto was the force behind that near-genocidal campaign), the US portrayed Suharto as a man bent on reforming his hopelessly corrupt government -- sort of a moderate within a sea of iniquity (sense a pattern here?)
Of course, Suharto was the source of the very corruption and brutality that has made Indonesia such a human rights eyesore, so obviously his stepping down was the way to get to true reform and what the press likes to call "democracy".
But in truth, what this recent reshuffling of power reveals is that Suharto's bloody record has become something of a liability, so what the US wants is "Suharto without Suharto" -- that is, a continuation of his policies (what's mislabeled "free trade" by policy wonks over here) without so obvious a scapegoat at the helm.
That's how Suharto was allowed to get away with it all, and enabled him to hand-pick his successor and move behind the scenes. It creates the illusion that things have changed in Indonesia, when in truth they haven't.
The military is still THE power in Indonesia, and you can be sure no mass of unarmed students can prevail against the lavishly-funded Indonesian military. The US has put a lot of money into this military machine, so it obviously holds the cards, like so many "democracies" the press likes to brag about (the recent lauding of Latin America as a stronghold of democracy is a sick joke).
Anyhow, you can expect that Indonesia will continue to sputter and fall, because no nation can really function when the majority of its people are in such desperate poverty -- imagine trying to build a skyscraper on a foundation of sand and you'll see why the consistent Third World model:
ensures instability and misery.
It was interesting observing how the press covered the riots in Indonesia, talking about 500 dying in the riots -- of course, what wasn't made clear was exactly how those folks died. I mean, did they just mysteriously keel over, or were they, perhaps, shot by the Indonesian military? On the first day of riots, six students were killed by the authorities, but after that, the press backed off and simply said they died. Now, to me, 500 people being killed would constitute a massacre, but for the press to say that would call into question the nature of the government trying to maintain power.
So those people simply died, and we're led to believe that this "new" government is going to pursue "reform" -- whatever that means.
Anyhow, it'll be interesting to see the situation continue in Indonesia, and watch the press continue to muddle and otherwise skew the story to create the illusion that Indonesia is a fledgling democracy, rather than the ruthless, elitist police state it's been for the past 30 years.
DN
5/30/98