Word: jakarta
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...remember the day president Sukarno died. It was June 21, 1970, and I was in a taxi going from Jakarta's airport into town after completing a tour of the U.S. as a student leader - a trip made possible through a program initiated by Suharto, Sukarno's successor. The streets were quiet and I asked the driver why. He replied in a neutral voice that Sukarno had just passed away. After the chaos and isolationism of the Sukarno years, my student movement had supported Suharto's vision of stability and economic growth. Nevertheless, I felt a sad sense of passage...
...There is no sense of regime change with Suharto's death. He had been out of power, and practically out of sight, living quietly in a leafy residential neighborhood in central Jakarta, for nearly 10 years. But he was not a forgotten man - when he should have been. That says much about who he was and what he stood for. Suharto was the very avatar of the philosophy of economic development first, and political progress later (if at all) - a model of governance that was once the rule in much of Asia. During his nearly 33 years in power, Suharto...
...sent arbiter of life and death. Even after he was forced to relinquish power, Suharto dwelt among his countrymen as if invulnerable to mortal retribution, as if Indonesia could not act against the man who was once its infallible, singular autocrat. When he died on Sunday, January 27 in Jakarta, at the age of 86, the islands of Indonesia shuddered...
...spite of all of Suharto's soldiers and all of his money, Indonesia was inundated by the Asian financial crisis. Currency speculation had led to the collapse of Thailand's currency, which started a chain of events that swamped Indonesia's rupiah. The devaluation sent company profits dramatically downward; Jakarta's stock market crashed. Food prices spiked upwards, leading to rioting in the streets and the death of perhaps hundreds of people clamoring for food in the capital. The country's divisions re-emerged: Muslims vs. non-Muslims; Malay-Indonesians vs. Chinese-Indonesians; secular Muslims vs. orthodox Muslims. The ghosts...
After the overthrow, Suharto spent most of his time living at home with his family in an upscale neighborhood in central Jakarta even as allegations of ill-gotten wealth percolated through the press. Citing declining health and diminished mental capacity, Suharto managed to stay out of court despite a 1998 legislative decree ordering an investigation in all corruption, collusion and nepotism charges involving Suharto. He was constantly in and out of hospitals after suffering strokes and undergoing kidney dialysis...