DECEMBER 22, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 50 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK

Looking Back
Fall of a Strongman: JAKARTA, MAY 1998

Everyone watching, it seemed, was holding their breath. The smile — usually gentle, now taut with bitterness — never left Suharto's face. "I'll say thank you very much for your support and I am sorry for my mistakes," he said, announcing his resignation after 32 years as Indonesia's dictator and president. He stood aside as his vice president, B. J. Habibie, was sworn in as his successor. He shook Habibie's hand, and walked down a line of judges shaking hands. He gave a small salute to onlookers. Then he walked away.

Immediately, the students who had protested in the streets of Jakarta, above, and then occupied parliament began to celebrate. At least 500 people had died in the preceding days, many in mall fires set by rioters — hardly a blip on the crackdown radar of a man who began his reign with a massacre of about 500,000 alleged communists. Much of Indonesian society began to turn against Suharto in 1996, when he engineered the ouster of Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of his predecessor, from the major opposition party. His remarkable New Order, which had lifted the country out of economic stagnation, largely perished when the 1997 economic crisis hit hard. The Suharto children's continued grabbing of business advantages further soured the mood. Finally, with the International Monetary Fund demanding that he toe its line, and even the rubber-stamp parliament threatening to impeach him, the pakubuwono (nail of the universe) stepped down.

Remove the nail, the thinking used to go, and everything will fall apart. While building Indonesia's economic miracle, Suharto had ensured that such a fear was paramount. Today, under democratically elected President Abdurrahman Wahid, a country torn by civil and economic strife might reflect that Suharto was correct. It might even feel some sympathy for the man who tried to marry a modern society with feudal politics to create a one-man military, political and social fiefdom. Yet as one legislator said that resignation day: "I have felt sorry for him for years, but he didn't take the hint."

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