deldaley
12-01-2008, 10:37 AM
Dying Suharto, kleptocrat and butcher, slips away from justice
http://http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00265/suharto-fish_265424h.jpg
Indonesia was at the end of an era last night, as its former dictator Suharto, the general and mystic who for 32 years dominated the world’s largest Muslim nation, teetered on the verge of death.
The country’s senior politicians and members of his family gathered at his bedside as the disgraced former President suffered multiple organ failure and lost consciousness after a week of deteriorating health. “We put him on a ventilator and gave him medication to overcome this critical condition,” Marjo Soebiandono, one of his doctors, told a press conference at the Pertamina hospital in the capital, Jakarta.
Paying their last respects were Indonesia’s Vice-President, Yusuf Kalla, and Suharto’s half-brother, Probosutedjo, who was allowed out of prison, where he is serving a four-year sentence for corruption.
Suharto’s death at the age of 86 will draw attention to the failure of the Indonesian Government and of international organisations to bring to justice a man believed widely to be one of the greatest kleptocrats and butchers of the 20th century.
The Indonesian Government brought a civil case against Suharto and one of his foundations recently, accusing him of stealing $441 million (£225 million) from state institutions between 1978 and 1998, when he was driven from power by a popular uprising. After he came to power in 1965, following a mysterious coup against Sukarno, the previous President, an estimated 500,000 Indonesians were murdered in massacres of alleged communists, carried out with the tacit approval of Suharto.
Then there was the invasion and occupation of East Timor, where another 200,000 people were reckoned to have died from war and deprivation, and the long-running independence war in Aceh. The Government’s estimate of the loot amassed by Suharto and his “cronies” is modest compared with that of the anticorruption organisation Transparency International, which in 2004 reckoned his total takings at $35bn, more than the late Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines or Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
why do we let these corrupt people get away scott free does international law mean nothing its one rule for them and nothing but rules for us
http://http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00265/suharto-fish_265424h.jpg
Indonesia was at the end of an era last night, as its former dictator Suharto, the general and mystic who for 32 years dominated the world’s largest Muslim nation, teetered on the verge of death.
The country’s senior politicians and members of his family gathered at his bedside as the disgraced former President suffered multiple organ failure and lost consciousness after a week of deteriorating health. “We put him on a ventilator and gave him medication to overcome this critical condition,” Marjo Soebiandono, one of his doctors, told a press conference at the Pertamina hospital in the capital, Jakarta.
Paying their last respects were Indonesia’s Vice-President, Yusuf Kalla, and Suharto’s half-brother, Probosutedjo, who was allowed out of prison, where he is serving a four-year sentence for corruption.
Suharto’s death at the age of 86 will draw attention to the failure of the Indonesian Government and of international organisations to bring to justice a man believed widely to be one of the greatest kleptocrats and butchers of the 20th century.
The Indonesian Government brought a civil case against Suharto and one of his foundations recently, accusing him of stealing $441 million (£225 million) from state institutions between 1978 and 1998, when he was driven from power by a popular uprising. After he came to power in 1965, following a mysterious coup against Sukarno, the previous President, an estimated 500,000 Indonesians were murdered in massacres of alleged communists, carried out with the tacit approval of Suharto.
Then there was the invasion and occupation of East Timor, where another 200,000 people were reckoned to have died from war and deprivation, and the long-running independence war in Aceh. The Government’s estimate of the loot amassed by Suharto and his “cronies” is modest compared with that of the anticorruption organisation Transparency International, which in 2004 reckoned his total takings at $35bn, more than the late Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines or Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
why do we let these corrupt people get away scott free does international law mean nothing its one rule for them and nothing but rules for us