Suharto

DELAY in announcing results of the June 7 election until July 9 increases the potential for unrest in Indonesia. But one thing is already clear: Most of the voters -- at present count, four-fifths of them -- favored throwing out the ruling Golkar Party and President B. J. Habibie with it.Throughout the count, the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) has led with more than one-third of the total, roughly double that of the second-place party. This means that twice as many people want Megawati Sukarnoputri, the gentle, 52-year-old daughter of the founding president of the country, as leader as want anyone else.

STEVE HANKE had an interesting 1998. He briefly became Indonesia's monetary czar as firebombs flew in Jakarta streets, made headlines in a dozen languages and visited Bill Clinton in the White House. World Trade magazine called him one of the "most influential people" on the planet along with Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and George Soros.MIT economist Paul Krugman called Hanke a "snake-oil salesman" and an "obscure" bush leaguer. In a page-one profile, the Wall Street Journal basically called him a witch doctor and a quack.

IT WAS one of the world's great testimonies to democracy, an election demanding change in which practically everyone eligible voted. A revolution by ballot. On Monday, Indonesia enjoyed the second free election in its history. The first was in 1955.Counting 113 million paper ballots may take weeks. Not everyone will believe the announced result. But the main message is in. In this orderly and nonviolent election, the Indonesian people repudiated the heritage of 32 years of dictatorship by Suharto and called for fundamental change.

IN BALTIMORE, the politicians count on half the people not voting. Contrast that with East Timor, where almost all the eligible voters defied intimidation Monday to make their land's most basic decision.It was a referendum to see if the people want autonomy within Indonesia. If so, they get it. If not, they'll get full independence.Many observers wouldn't recommend that for half an island with 800,000 people, impoverished and wracked by war for 24 years. But the United Nations is supervising the election, and if independence is what the people want, independence they should get.For four centuries, the Portuguese controlled East Timor while the Netherlands turned the rest of what is now Indonesia into a Dutch colony.

PRESIDENT B. J. Habibie has done more to establish democracy and a sound economy in the year since he replaced his mentor, the dictator President Suharto, than anyone predicted.The apparently free election for parliament on June 7 is the most dramatic result. Where only three parties were allowed before, 48 are in the fray. Where Golkar, the party of General Suharto and Mr. Habibie, would previously have won, it now predicts that it will not.The real prize won't come until November, when a consultative assembly including the elected parliament will select the next president.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesia steps into the unknown tomorrow with a highly complex parliamentary election in which, even if everything goes smoothly, the outcome is sure to cause confusion and protests.All across this huge archipelago, with its population of more than 200 million, supporters of 48 parties have been celebrating the country's first free election in a generation with a campaign that has all the euphoria of a victory rally. Helicopters shower crowds with leaflets, young men climb tall monuments to hang strings of flags, and convoys of buses wind through the streets with youngsters dancing on their roofs.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- After Indonesia's first democratic elections in 44 years, the ruling Golkar party of ousted President Suharto has conceded defeat, ending decades of one-party rule.But thanks to a complex and indirect voting system, the race for the presidency is just beginning and the final winners and losers in Indonesia's transition to democracy are not clear.A year after anti-Suharto riots killed 1,200 and forced the autocrat to step down, voters' expectations for democratic change are soaring.

THE MOSTLY peaceful revolution in the streets of Indonesia in May 1998 may turn into one of democracy's greatest success stories, although it faces obstacles aplenty.The artful political contraption known as the People's Consultative Assembly did not merely mask the retention of power by the army clique around General Wiranto and the Golkar Party of the fallen dictator Suharto. Many Indonesians feared it would.Nor did it hand executive power to the election plurality winner, Megawati Sukarnoputri, the opaque heroine of the impoverished and daughter of the founder of independence, Sukarno.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Having anointed its new leaders this week, Indonesia now finds itself facing the even more daunting task of redefining and reconstructing a nation whose institutions, politics, economy and sense of purpose had been bankrupted by the long rule of former President Suharto.On Wednesday the national assembly elected a new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, ending the 17-month transitional leadership of B. J. Habibie, who took the first steps to liberate political discourse, freeing the press and setting in motion a freewheeling electoral process.

It just would not be the Maryland Senate without Larry Young.Suharto agrees with whoever pounded his table last. There is nothing sick or senile in that.Britain and Ireland have no problem agreeing on Northern Ireland. The people who have to live there won't have it.Explain again how it was really global warming that froze Canada.Pub Date: 1/14/98

ALI ALATAS, 76 Indonesian diplomat was once considered for top U.N. post Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who had the delicate task of representing Indonesia during an often-brutal dictatorship and was once considered for the top job at the United Nations, died yesterday in Singapore, a week after suffering a stroke. Mr. Alatas was the country's highest-ranking diplomat from 1988 until 1999 - the year after longtime President Suharto was swept from power after a wave of pro-democracy street protests.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Former President Suharto, an army general who rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and ruled for 32 years during an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died yesterday in Indonesia. He was 86. Suharto's unyielding opposition to communism won him the backing of the United States during the height of the Cold War, although he was one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers of that era. He governed the world's fourth-most-populous nation with a combination of paternalism and ruthlessness from 1965 until he was ousted in spring 1998.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Spend a few days in Indonesia and you'll find many people asking you a question you weren't prepared for: Is America's war on terrorism going to become a war against democracy? As Indonesians see it, for decades after World War II, America sided with dictators, like their own President Suharto, because of its war on communism. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, America began to press more vigorously for democracy and human rights in countries like Indonesia, as the United States shifted from containing communism to enlarging the sphere of democratic states.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Trying to send a strong message that widespread violence and corruption will no longer be tolerated in Indonesia, President Abdurrahman Wahid said yesterday that he would not to pardon the convicted son of former dictator Suharto and ordered the arrest of the country's most notorious militia leader. But Wahid's actions could lead to further unrest. Violence and public disorder have erupted during past government efforts to bring the Suharto family and the militias to justice, underscoring the difficulty of this impoverished country's struggle to forge a democracy after decades of authoritarian rule.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The youngest son of former President Suharto admitted yesterday that he was guilty of corruption, but he was allowed to leave the court after he asked for clemency to avoid serving an 18-month prison sentence imposed by the Supreme Court. In a meeting with prosecutors, Hutomo Mandala Putra, who is known as Tommy Suharto, formally requested a presidential pardon. His lawyers said that though the request amounted to an admission of corruption in a $10.8 million land deal by Tommy Suharto - the first Suharto family member to be convicted of graft - it was intended to prevent him from going to jail.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - By calling in sick on the first day of his corruption trial, Indonesia's former leader, Suharto, has put up another hurdle to this country's tortuous effort to come to terms with its past. Government prosecutors said yesterday that they would procede with their case against Suharto on charges that he siphoned about $590 million in state funds through several charitable foundations under his control when he was president. But with the trial adjourned until Sept. 14 - and then only to hear testimony from doctors who declared Suharto unfit to attend the opening session yesterday - it is far from clear that the 79-year-old former president will ever stand in the dock.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Now and then the old man swings a golf club or feeds his exotic birds while he awaits trial on corruption charges for plundering the nation's wealth. He wakes up to the crow of his favorite rooster and a pet parrot that squawks: "Good morning, Father President." The parrot is an echo of the good days of former President Suharto's New Order regime, which came to a bloody end in 1998. During Suharto's heyday, advisers told him only what they figured he would like to hear.

THE AGED, deposed national leader may or may not remember enough to help his defense, if the charges against him actually get to court. But former President of Indohesia Suharto is facing trial for skimming $570 million from the state in 32 years of misrule. Whether, at age 79, after two strokes, he is actually going through the indignity, or will escape on health grounds, doesn't matter much. He is not getting back in power. The establishment will move against the assets of his children and cronies, to the extent that it can find them.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Dealing another blow to Indonesia's embattled former leader, Suharto, a Jakarta court ruled yesterday that Time magazine did not libel him in an article that claimed Suharto and his family amassed a $15 billion fortune during his three decades in power. "According to the evidence, it is clear that the article was not fabricated, but was based on facts," said the ruling by a three-judge panel. The judges also said they respected the magazine's refusal to reveal its confidential sources.

BEIJING - Bowing to public anger and street violence, Indonesia's attorney general put former President Suharto under house arrest yesterday and vowed to charge him with embezzlement in the next two months. "This is to ensure the questioning continues," said Yusyar Yahya, a spokesman for Attorney General Marzuki Darusman. The government has ordered Suharto not to leave his home in a lush, wealthy neighborhood in downtown Jakarta. For the retired five-star general who ruled Indonesia for more than three decades, yesterday's announcement marked further humiliation as he fights charges of embezzlement of millions of dollars from charitable foundations controlled by his family.