Indonesia endured decades of bloodshed during former president Suharto's dictatorship. Yet, in an era when ruthless leaders are increasingly being held accountable, he has eased comfortably into old age without so much as a day in court.
The former dictator has been shielded since his May 1998 ouster by a graft-ridden legal system, government leaders who became wealthy during his 32-year rule and top military loyalists who want to clear his name.
Concerns about his mental and physical health too have kept him from facing trial: A series of strokes in recent years have left Suharto with permanent brain damage and impaired speech.
There is also a foreign hesitance to push justice in a fragile democracy that is a US ally in the fight against terrorism.
Between 300,000 and 800,000 alleged communist sympathizers were killed during Suharto's bloody rise to power from 1965 to 1968, a spasm of violence led by the Indonesian army and conservative Muslim groups.
His troops killed another 300,000 in military operations against independence movements in Papua, Aceh and East Timor, while hundreds of thousands of others were jailed without trial or disappeared.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, once a general serving under Suharto, is among a stream of high-profile government officials who have flocked to the hospital to visit the former strongman, who is suffering from multiple organ failure and a potentially deadly blood infection.
"As a human being, like other leaders, certainly he made mistakes and committed wrongdoing, but it would not hurt us to thank him and appreciate his achievements and services to the country," Yudhoyono said on Saturday.
In the past, concerns about instability in the vast and ethnically diverse archipelagic nation have been cited as reasons not to prosecute the retired five-star general.
Some believed that reopening wounds of the past "might yield a similar meltdown" to that of the former Yugoslav federation, which broke apart in a series of wars in the 1990s after the death of strongman Josip Broz Tito, said Mark Drumbl, director of the Transnational Law Institute at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.
There also were fears his testimony would implicate multinational corporations and foreign governments "that were only too content to do business with him, support him, and make huge profits out of Indonesia's vast natural resources," he said.
Transparency International, a financial watchdog, estimates Suharto and his family amassed as much as US$35 billion during his reign, with his six children and inner circle becoming fabulously wealthy running state enterprises.
Efforts to recover the money have failed, and only one civil case is pending.
Yudhoyono sent the attorney general to the hospital this week to offer the family an out-of-court settlement for a US$1.5 billion suit, seeking to avoid a potentially embarrassing public trial. Defense lawyers rejected the proposal, denying accusations of wrongdoing.
Only one member of Suharto's family has ever served time in jail -- his youngest son, Tommy -- for ordering the murder of a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him of graft.
He was released in 2006 after spending just one-third of his 15-year sentence in a private air-conditioned cell.
Some critics say Indonesia's judicial system is so crippled by corruption that an international tribunal is needed to address past atrocities.
"If some Suharto family member needs to buy off a judge ... that's easy for them to do," said William Liddle, an Indonesia expert at Ohio State University. "Virtually all court decisions in this country are bought."
There is enough evidence against Suharto to try him under international law for crimes against humanity and genocide, said Richard Tanter, a professor of international relations and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic died in UN custody while on trial for war crimes and genocide; Chile's General Augusto Pinochet was facing human rights abuse allegations when he died at age 91; proceedings are under way against Liberia's ex-President Charles Taylor; and Cambodia is prosecuting Khmer Rouge leaders for the killing fields.
But previous calls that Suharto be tried for graft and rights abuses have all but died away in the wake of his illness, with even his fiercest critics in the predominantly Muslim country saying this is the time to forgive.
"The idea of pursuing old, sick men is unattractive, but the basic deterrence function of such prosecutions largely outweighs" any drawbacks, Tanter countered. "For the ghosts of all the slaughtered and tortured, I'd like to see justice."
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS