Description
For three decades President Suharto was Indonesia’s supreme leader: the poster boy of Asian dictatorships. But in 1998, Indonesia’s economy collapsed, the country was bankrupt and the people were rioting. The economic crisis cracked Indonesian politics wide open, and exposed the corruption inside. As this documentary shows, Suharto lost control and could no longer rely on his charisma to keep his people content. President Suharto played a game of “out of sight, out of mind.” He ordered police to confine student protests to university campuses, as though that would make the problem go away. Just after Suharto was “re-elected” president, he proved just how completely out of touch he was when he appointed his new cabinet. Indonesians were shocked to see it was even more corrupt and self-serving than the previous one. Their president was in denial. Suharto had worked magic for years, giving people a taste of the good life, allowing billions in foreign capital to flow through the nation’s banks. But almost overnight, an Asia-wide currency collapse bankrupted Indonesia. Foreign lenders withdrew. Suharto used is position to make his family wealthy, which included an ill-fated Indonesian car called “the timor.” Launched by his son Tommy, Indonesians paid billions for this failed endeavour. Suharto also appointed his daughter to his new cabinet which may have helped the family businesses like airline companies, though officially bankrupt, and hotels and real estate all over the country. And they own the TV networks, which helps with public relations, while Suharto’s family and friends deposit billions of U.S. dollars in offshore banks. Suharto’s demise is history repeating itself. Many remember how Suharto came to power. It was an economic crisis that pushed things over the edge in the 1960s. The rupiah collapsed. Prices soared, and Suharto took power. 1965: the movies called it “The Year Of Living Dangerously.” People turned on each other and the army turned on the people. A half-million Indonesians were slaughtered. The largest group was the ethnic-Chinese. It was all chillingly familiar this time, when gangs of hooligans looted shops and vandalized property. The victims, once again, were the Chinese. They are the principle merchants in Indonesia. People accused them of warehousing food, waiting for the prices to go up. The government finally ordered control days later. By then, gangs had torched and destroyed whole communities. “Blame the Chinese” is a common political game in Indonesia, when those in power need a scapegoat. In a country almost entirely Muslim, it was easy to spot the outsiders, as a wave of nationalism swept the country.