20-year wait, still nothing
Indonesians yet to get justice after fall of dictator Suharto
JAKARTA: Almost every week Asih Widodo attends a vigil outside Indonesia’s presidential palace, seeking justice for his son who died in an orgy of violence after the fall of dictator Suharto.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the former general’s 1998 resignation at the height of the Asian economic crisis as Indonesia was paralysed by riots, food shortages, a plunging rupiah and mass unemployment.
More than 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed in riots and protests shortly before and in the months after Suharto’s autocratic regime collapsed.
Widodo’s son, engineering student Sigit Prasetyo, died in a hail of army gunfire aimed at protesters.
“I was at work when I got a phone call that my son was in hospital – I knew immediately in my heart he was gone,” Widodo said at a recent vigil alongside other bereaved parents demanding answers over the death of protesting students.
“My son was murdered by the army.”
In the past two decades the country of 260 million has undergone what many see as a remarkable transition to democracy but SouthEast Asia’s biggest economy still grapples with rampant corruption and inequality.
Suharto – who grabbed power in 1967 following the massacre in 1965-6 of hundreds of thousands of alleged communist sympathisers and ethnic Chinese – died in 2008.
He was never held to account for the suspected looting of billions of dollars from state coffers or rights abuses during his three-decade rule, which became a byword for corruption and cronyism.
And the violence linked to his government’s collapse is another dark chapter which Indonesia has yet to address in any meaningful way.
Ethnic Chinese Indonesians bore the brunt of the bloodshed in the last days of Suharto, with women cowering in their homes for days as rape squads – purportedly led by army thugs – roamed Jakarta’s streets.
Many died trapped in burning buildings as angry mobs – resentful of their relative financial success – ransacked Chinese-owned stores, smashed windows and set fire to cars as the government teetered on the verge of collapse.
Ayu Puspita was 30 when crowds stormed through the capital targeting Chinese-owned shops.
“It was so chaotic. Cars were being burned, motorcycles were toppled over – it was just so scary,” said Puspita at her restaurant in Glodok, known as Jakarta’s Chinatown.
Subianto, a 67-year-old parking attendant who has worked in Chinatown for some five decades, said he watched in shock as parts of the city went up in flames.
“There were no police, no soldiers. People were looting everywhere. Trucks were coming to steal things,” he said.
Hundreds of Chinese-owned homes and businesses were looted and razed during the unrest, which unfolded under the noses of the security forces. Their failure to intervene has fuelled suspicions of military involvement ever since.
Some buildings in Jakarta’s Chinatown remain damaged even decades later. —