2nd President of Indonesia
In office 27 March 1968 – 21 May 1998
Vice President
Hamengkubuwono IX
Adam Malik
Umar Wirahadikusumah
Sudharmono
Try Sutrisno
Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie
Preceded by Sukarno
Succeeded by Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie
Personal details
Birth date June 8, 1921
Birth place Kemusuk, Dutch East Indies (Jogyakarta)
Died January 27, 2008 (aged 86) Jakarta, Indonesia
Nationality Indonesian
Political party Golkar
Profession Military
Religion Islam
Spouse(s) Siti Hartinah (d. 1996)
Children Siti Hardiyanti Hastuti
Sigit Harjojudanto
Bambang Trihatmodjo
Siti Hediyati Hariyadi
Hutomo Mandala Putra
Siti Hutami Endang Adiningsih
Suharto was the second President of Indonesia, having held the office for 31 years from 1967 following Sukarno's removal until his resignation in 1998. Suharto was born in a small village, Kemusuk, in the Godean area near Yogyakarta, during the Dutch colonial era. He grew up in humble circumstances. His Javanese peasant parents divorced not long after his birth, and he was passed between foster parents for much of his childhood. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's independence struggle saw him joining the newly formed Indonesian army. Suharto rose to the rank of Major General following Indonesian independence. An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 was countered by Suharto-led troops and was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party. The army subsequently led an anti-communist purge, and Suharto wrested power from Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. He was appointed acting president in 1967 and President the following year. Support for Suharto's presidency was strong throughout the 1970s and 1980s but eroded following a severe financial crisis that led to widespread unrest and his resignation in May 1998. Suharto died in 2008. The legacy of Suharto's 31-year rule is debated both in Indonesia and abroad. Under his "New Order" administration, Suharto constructed a strong, centralised and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War. For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialisation, dramatically improving health, education and living standards. Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor during Suharto's presidency, which received de facto support from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia at the time, resulted in at least 100,000 deaths. By the 1990s, the New Order's authoritarianism and widespread corruption were a source of discontent. In the years after his presidency, attempts to try him on charges of corruption and genocide failed because of his poor health and because of lack of support within Indonesia.
Suharto was born on 8 June 1921 during the Dutch East Indies era, in a plaited bamboo walled house in the hamlet of Kemusuk, a part of the larger village of Godean. The village is 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) west of Yogyakarta, the cultural heartland of the Javanese. Born to ethnic Javanese parents of peasant class, he was the only child of his father's second marriage. His father, Kertosudiro had two children from his previous marriage, and was a village irrigation official. His mother Sukirah, a local woman, was distantly related to Sultan Hamengkubuwono V by his first concubine. Official Portrait Suharto and First Lady Siti Hartinah Five weeks after Suharto's birth, his mother suffered a nervous breakdown and he was placed in the care of his paternal great-aunt, Kromodiryo. Kertosudiro and Sukirah divorced early in Suharto's life and both later remarried. At the age of three, Suharto was returned to his mother who had remarried a local farmer whom Suharto helped in the rice paddies. In 1929, Suharto's father took him to live with his sister who was married to an agricultural supervisor, Prawirowihardjo, in the town of Wurjantoro in a poor and low-yield farming area near Wonogiri. Over the following two years, he was taken back to his mother in Kemusuk by his stepfather and then back again to Wurjantoro by his father.
World War II and Japanese occupation See also: Japanese occupation of Indonesia After finishing middle school at the age of 18, Suharto took a clerical job at a bank in Wurjantaro but was forced to resign after a bicycle mishap tore his only working clothes. Following a spell of unemployment, he joined the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) in 1940, and studied in a Dutch-run military school in Gombong near Yogyakarta. With the Netherlands under German occupation and the Japanese pressing for access to Indonesian oil supplies, the Dutch had opened up the KNIL to large intakes of previously excluded Javanese. After graduation, Suharto was assigned to Battalion XIII at Rampal. His service there was unremarkable, although he contracted malaria which required hospitalisation while on guard duty, and then gained promotion to sergeant. The March 1942 invasion of Imperial Japanese forces was initially welcomed by many Indonesians as a key step towards independence and Suharto was one of thousands of Indonesians who volunteered for Japanese organised security forces. He first joined the Japanese sponsored police force at the rank of keibuho (assistant inspector), where he claimed to have gained his first experience in the intelligence work so central to his presidency ("Criminal matters became a secondary problem," Suharto remarked, "what was most important were matters of a political kind"). Suharto shifted from police work toward the Japanese-sponsored militia, the Peta (Defenders of the Fatherland) in which Indonesians served as officers. In his training to serve at the rank of shodancho (platoon commander) he encountered a localized version of the Japanese bushido, or "way of the warrior", used to indoctrinate troops. This training encouraged an anti-Dutch and pro-nationalist thought, although toward the aims of the Imperial Japanese militarists. The encounter with a nationalistic and militarist ideology is believed to have profoundly influenced Suharto's own way of thinking. The Japanese turned ex-NCOs, including Suharto, into officers and gave them further military education, including lessons in the use of the samurai sword. Suharto's biographer, O.G. Roeder, records in The Smiling General (1969) that Suharto was "well known for his tough, but not brutal, methods".
Indonesian National Revolution
Two days after the Japanese surrender in the Pacific, independence leaders Sukarno and Hatta declared Indonesian independence, and were appointed President and Vice-President respectively of the new Republic. Suharto disbanded his regiment in accordance with orders from the Japanese command and returned to Yogyakarta. As republican groups rose to assert Indonesian independence, Suharto joined a new unit of the newly formed Indonesian army. On the basis of his PETA experience, he was appointed deputy commander, and subsequently a battalion commander when the republican forces were formally organised in October 1945. Suharto was involved in fighting against Allied troops around Magelang and Semarang, and was subsequently appointed head of a brigade as lieutenant-colonel, having earned respect as a field commander. In the early years of the War, he organised local armed forces into Battalion X of Regiment I; Suharto was promoted to the rank of Major and became Battalion X's leader. The arrival of the Allies, under a mandate to return the situation to the status quo ante bellum, quickly led to clashes between Indonesian republicans and Allied forces, namely returning Dutch and assisting British forces. Suharto led his Division X troops to halt an advance by the Dutch T ("Tiger") Brigade on 17 May 1946. It earned him the respect of his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Sunarto Kusumodirjo, who invited him to draft the working guidelines for the Battle Leadership Headquarters (MPP), a body created to organise and unify the command structure of the Indonesian Nationalist forces. The military forces of the still infant Republic of Indonesia were constantly restructuring. By August 1946, Suharto was head of the 22nd Regiment of Division III (the "Diponegoro Division") stationed in Yogyakarta. In late 1946, the Diponegoro Division assumed responsibility for defence of the west and southwest of Yogyakarta from Dutch forces. Conditions at the time are reported in Dutch sources as miserable; Suharto himself is reported as assisting smuggling syndicates in the transport of opium through the territory he controlled, to make income. Lieutenant Colonel Suharto in 1947. In December 1948, the Dutch launched "Operation Crow", which decimated much of the Indonesian fighting forces, and resulted in the capture of Sukarno and Hatta.For his part, Suharto took severe casualties in a humiliating defeat for Republican forces as the Dutch invaded the area of Yogyakarta.
In dawn raids on 1 March 1949, Suharto's forces and local militia re-captured the city, holding it until noon. Suharto's later accounts had him as the lone plotter, although other sources say Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX of Yogyakarta, and the Panglima of the Third Division ordered the attack. However, General Nasution said that Suharto took great care in preparing the "General Offensive" (Indonesian Serangan Umum). Civilians sympathetic to the Republican cause within the city had been galvanised by the show of force which proved that the Dutch had failed to win the guerrilla war. Internationally, the United Nations Security Council pressured the Dutch to cease the military offensive and to re-commence negotiations. Suharto reportedly took an active interest in the peace agreements, but as for many Republican military men, they were much to his dissatisfaction. During the Revolution, Suharto married Siti Hartinah (known as Madam Tien), the daughter of a minor noble in the Mangkunegaran royal house of Solo. The arranged marriage was enduring and supportive, lasting until Tien's death in 1996. The couple had six children: Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana (Tutut, born 1949), Sigit Harjojudanto (born 1951), Bambang Trihatmodjo (born 1953), Siti Hediati (Titiek, born 1959), Hutomo Mandala Putra (Tommy, born 1962), and Siti Hutami Endang Adiningish (Mamiek, born 1964). Within the Javanese upper class, it was considered acceptable if the wife pursued genteel commerce to supplement the family budget, allowing her husband to keep his dignity in his official role. The commercial dealings of Tien, her children and grandchildren became extensive and ultimately undermined Suharto's presidency.
In 1965, Suharto was assigned operational command of Sukarno's Konfrontasi, against the newly formed Malaysia. Fearful that Konfrontasi would leave Java thinly covered by the army, and hand control to the 2-million strong Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), he authorised a Kostrad intelligence officer, Ali Murtopo, to open contacts with the British and Malaysians.
Overthrow of Sukarno (1965)
By the mid-1960s, annual inflation ran between 500–1,000%, export revenues were shrinking, infrastructure crumbling, and severe poverty and hunger were widespread. President Sukarno led his country in a military confrontation with Malaysia while stepping up revolutionary and anti-western rhetoric. Sukarno's position came to depend on balancing the increasingly hostile forces of the army and Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). By 1965 at the height of the Cold War, the PKI penetrated all levels of government. With the support of Sukarno, the party gained increasing influence at the expense of the army, thus ensuring the army's enmity. By late 1965, the army was divided between a left-wing faction allied with the PKI, and a right-wing faction that was being courted by the United States.
Abortive coup and anti-communist purge
On the night of 30 September 1965 six senior army generals were kidnapped and executed in Jakarta by a battalion of soldiers from the Presidential Guard. Backed by elements of the armed forces, the insurgents occupied Merdeka Square including the areas in front of the Presidential Palace, the national radio station, and telecommunications centre. At 7:10 am Lt. Col. Untung Syamsuri announced on radio that the "30 September Movement" had forestalled a coup by "power-mad generals", and that it was "an internal army affair". Apart from Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Abdul Haris Nasution—who was targeted but escaped assassination by climbing over his garden wall when soldiers arrived to arrest him—Suharto was the most senior general not removed by the 30 September group. Suharto had been in hospital that evening with his three-year old son Tommy who had a scalding injury. It was here that he spoke to Colonel Abdul Latief, the only key person in the ensuing events with whom he spoke that evening. Upon being told of the shootings and disappearances, Suharto went to Kostrad headquarters just before dawn from where he could see soldiers occupying Merdeka Square. He led Kostrad in seizing control of the centre of Jakarta, capturing key strategic sites. Suharto announced over the radio at 9:00 pm that six generals had been kidnapped by "counter-revolutionaries". He said he was in control of the army, and that he would crush the 30 September Movement and safeguard Sukarno. Suharto issued an ultimatum to Halim Air Force Base, where the G30S had based themselves and where Sukarno (the reasons for his presence are unclear and were subject of claim and counter-claim), General Omar Dhani and Aidit had gathered. The coup leaders fled Jakarta while G30S-sympathetic battalions in Central Java quickly came under Suharto control. The poorly organised and coordinated coup thus failed, and by 2 October, Suharto's faction was firmly in control of the army. Sukarno's obedience to Suharto's 1 October ultimatum to leave Halim changed all power relationships. Sukarno's fragile balance of power between the military, political Islam, communists, and nationalists that underlay his "Guided Democracy" was collapsing. Complicated and partisan theories continue to this day over the identity of the attempted coup's organisers and their aims. The army's (and subsequently the "New Order's") official version was that the PKI was solely responsible. Other theories include Suharto being behind the events; that the army and Suharto was merely taking advantage of a poorly executed coup; and that Sukarno was behind the events (see 30 September Movement). A military propaganda campaign convinced both Indonesian and international audiences that it was a Communist coup, and that the murders were cowardly atrocities against Indonesian heroes. The army led a campaign to purge Indonesian society, government and armed forces of the communist party and leftist organisations. The purge quickly spread from Jakarta to the rest of the country.
In some areas the army organised civilian and religious groups and local militias, in other areas communal vigilante action preceded the army. The most widely accepted estimates are that at least half a million were killed. As many as 1.5 million were imprisoned at one stage or another. As a result of the purge, one of Sukarno's three pillars of support, the Indonesian Communist Party, was effectively eliminated by the other two, the military and political Islam.
Power Struggle
On 2 October, Suharto accepted Sukarno's order to take control of the army on Suharto's condition that he personally have authority to restore order and security. The 1 November formation of Kopkamtib (Komando Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan dan Ketertiban, or Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order), formalised this authority. By January 1966 the PKI, President Sukarno's strongest pillar of support, had been effectively eliminated, the army now saw its opportunity to occupy the apex of Indonesian power. Sukarno was still the Supreme Commander by virtue of the constitution, thus Suharto was careful not to be seen to be seizing power in his own coup. For eighteen months following the quashing of the 30 September Movement, there was a complicated process of political manoeuvers against Sukarno, including student agitation, stacking of parliament, media propaganda and military threats.
On 1 February 1966, Sukarno promoted Suharto to the rank of Lieutenant General. The same month, Gen. Nasution had been forced out of his position of Defence Minister and the power contest had been reduced to Suharto and Sukarno. The Supersemar decree of 11 March 1966 transferred much of Sukarno's power over the parliament and army to Suharto, ostensibly allowing Suharto to do whatever was needed to restore order. On 12 March 1967, Sukarno was stripped of his remaining power by Indonesia's provisional Parliament, and Suharto was named Acting President. Sukarno was placed under house arrest; little more was heard from him, and he died in June 1970. On 27 March 1968, the Provisional Peoples Representative Assembly formally appointed Suharto for the first of his five-year terms as President.
The "New Order" (1967–1998)
Suharto is appointed President of Indonesia at a ceremony, March 1968. At first, many saw Suharto as a comparatively obscure officer who had been fortuitously thrust to prominence by the events of late 1965 and assumed he would not remain in power long. However, by the early 1970s, he had consolidated his position by both isolating his rivals within the army and ruling elite and rewarding those loyal to him with patronage building the presidency into the most powerful institution in Indonesia. By the 1980s, Suharto dominated the New Order and his military contemporaries had retired or were otherwise no longer a threat to his position. In contrast to the communal and political conflicts, economic collapse and social breakdown of the late-1950s and mid-1960s, Suharto's "New Order" —so-termed to distinguish it from Sukarno's "old order"—was committed to achieving political order, economic development, and the removal of mass participation in the political process. In place of Sukarno's revolutionary rhetoric, Suharto showed a pragmatic use of power, and in contrast to the liberal parliamentary democracy of the 1950s, Suharto headed an authoritarian, military-dominated government. The "New Order" featured a weak civil society, the bureaucratisation and corporatisation of political and societal organisations, and selective but effective repression of opponents.
To maintain domestic order, Suharto greatly expanded the funding and powers of the Indonesian state apparatus. He established two intelligence agencies—the Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib) and the State Intelligence Coordination Agency (BAKIN)—to deal with threats to the regime. The Bureau of Logistics (BULOG) was established to distribute rice and other staple commodities granted by USAID. These new government bodies were put under the military regional command structure, that under Suharto was given a "dual function" as both a defence force and as civilian administrators. The New Order rolled Indonesian political parties into two — nationalists and Christian parties became the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), and Muslim parties into the People's Development Party (PPP). The New Order built an army-sponsored co-operative movement, Golkar, a coalition of society's "functional groups", into an official party of secular development. Golkar, PDI, and PPP were the only parties allowed to contend elections with the latter two prevented from forming an effective opposition. 100 seats in the electoral college for electing the President were set aside for military representatives. Suharto was elected unopposed as president in 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1998. As part of 1967s 'Basic Policy for the Solution of the Chinese Problem' and other measures, all but one Chinese-language papers were closed, all Chinese religious expressions had to be confined to their homes, Chinese-language schools were phased out, Chinese script in public places was banned, and Chinese were encouraged to take on Indonesian-sounding names. Much of this legislation was revoked following Suharto's fall from power in 1998.
(Source Wikipedia)
