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Jakarta plays footsie with
Suharto
By Richard S Ehrlich
 JAKARTA - Former Indonesian president Suharto,
safe from prosecution for allegedly embezzling millions
of dollars during his 32-year-long, US-backed regime,
has decided to give something away for free.
Shrouded in secrecy and officially suffering
"dementia", the ex-dictator agreed to provide a sample
of his footprints, to be enshrined alongside the
undersole impressions of other Indonesian presidents and
officials in a government-installed downtown Jakarta
display. Local media compared the political walkway to
the showcasing of famous actors' handprints set in
cement on Hollywood Boulevard in California.
Above the ankles, Suharto has remained mostly
unseen by the outside world and was expected to continue
hiding at his comfortable home, until he dies.
Below his ankles, however, Suharto possessed
something the Indonesian government craved so much that
several officials pilgrimaged to his Jakarta house on a
hot, smoggy Thursday morning last week, hoping the
disgraced leader would comply.
Suharto, 82, is
widely hated for allowing his adult children and other
relatives and friends to grow spectacularly wealthy
while he manipulated US aid, the domestic economy, a
Byzantine system of "contributions" and other lucrative
income.
Unwilling to put him on trial after he
was diagnosed as mentally unstable, the government is
now happy to play footsie with Suharto instead.
"He is old, but he looks very fresh," Jakarta
Governor Sutiyoso told reporters upon emerging from
Suharto's home on leafy Cendana Street, accompanied by
two workers who took an imprint of Suharto's feet.
In his meeting with the governor, Suharto, a
widower, was accompanied by his eldest daughter Siti
"Tutut" Hardiyanti Rukmana, now in her mid-50s, along
with former minister of justice Ismail Saleh and former
state secretary Saadilah Mursjid.
Five years
ago, when Suharto was ousted from power, his daughter
Tutut was minister of social affairs and said to be
worth an estimated US$2 billion through her investments
in more than 100 companies including Bank Central Asia,
telecommunications, domestic airlines, a pulp and paper
mill, plus the toll booths which punctuate highways in
and around Jakarta.
On May 21, 1998, she
appeared stern-faced, standing next to her father while
he reluctantly announced his resignation in a televised
speech. Suharto was toppled during student-led street
riots that left 500-1,000 people dead.
Sutiyoso
was reluctant to discuss Suharto's mental condition and
said his visit on Thursday was simply to get the former
president's footprints.
The prints will soon be
permanently installed in pavement at the edge of
Jakarta's revered Freedom Square - which is adorned by
the National Monument - across from the white, cake-like
Presidential Palace from where Suharto once reigned.
Other Indonesian presidents, including current
leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, the virtually blind
Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, Bacharuddin J Habibie and
Megawati's late father Sukarno, will also have their
footprints in the pavement.
Megawati's prints
were taken on June 5 along with those of Sutiyoso,
because the walkway will include the capital's current
and former governors on the opposite side of Freedom
Square, across from City Hall. Other notable
personalities will also have impressions of their feet
on display.
Indonesians currently enjoy much
greater freedom compared with the repressive rule of
Suharto, but widespread poverty and a resurgence by the
military into political life has made many people
cynical of the "reforms" which were supposed to evolve
after Suharto's downfall.
This Southeast Asian
nation "seems to be adrift with uncertainty, and the
national leadership is beset by internal squabbling
among a political elite that blatantly displays its
greed", lamented the Jakarta Post in its editorial last
Friday.
In 2000, judges halted a trial into
Suharto's alleged embezzlement of $570 million after
agreeing with doctors who said he was suffering
"dementia" and would be mentally unable to provide
truthful testimony or coherent memories.
Before
the nationally televised trial was stopped, doctors
showed computer imagery of Suharto's diseased brain to
reveal damage by strokes and heart disease and his
answers to a "dementia questionnaire". They also
presented childish drawings Suharto made for the doctors
when asked to draw everyday items, such as a flower, a
house and a clock.
Wahid has estimated Suharto's
family fortune at a whopping $45 billion. Other
investigators said the family was worth only $15
billion, but suspected most of it was embezzled or
snatched through corrupt, monopolistic contracts during
Suharto's reign.
Over the years, doctors have
fitted Suharto with a pacemaker during heart surgery and
treated him for strokes, low blood pressure, breathing
and urinary problems.
In July 2002, his younger
son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra was jailed for 15 years
for masterminding the assassination of a judge. The
judge was killed after sentencing Tommy for corruption,
possession of weapons and evading justice.
(Copyright 2003 Richard S Ehrlich.)
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