Word: suharto
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...dangers appear to faze Suharto. When he stood up to proclaim how he would save the nation last week, he calmly planted his chin on his chest and without once raising his eyes or changing his expression, began to read: "The era we are about to enter is filled with changes...continue the enhancement of what is already satisfactory...tighten our belts... I ask you for your prayers." Fifteen minutes later he sat down, his eyes flickering closed. He had done it again: the smiling general had confounded everyone. He had said precisely nothing...
After 32 years in command, Suharto has become a master of concentrating all power in his hands by keeping his opponents off balance. He has long manipulated appointments in the military and the government so that no challenger to his power could ever emerge. But if Indonesians have come to expect his cryptic utterances, Suharto's inscrutable manner has unnerved international lenders trying to hammer out concrete programs to restructure the country's banking system and reschedule corporate debt. "What is this man about?" asked a Western banker in Jakarta. "Anytime you think you have a solution, he reshuffles...
Late last week there was a spurt of optimism when the IMF said it was sending a team to Jakarta for talks on reviving the aid package. But by Saturday the mood dampened again as Suharto announced his new Cabinet and for the first time included a family member: his eldest daughter, known as "Tutut," who has extensive business interests. The new Trade Minister is chief crony Bob Hasan, a golfing partner dubbed "the Plywood King" for his control of the timber trade...
...Suharto has been playing hardball with IMF chief Michel Camdessus for months over a $43 billion bailout agreement to restore confidence in his economy. Jakarta has repeatedly reneged on reforms, particularly those requiring the dismantling of lucrative monopolies controlled by Suharto's children and close friends. By telling the IMF that he wants aid on his terms and not theirs, Suharto has effectively bet Indonesia's entire economy, a wager so outlandish that foreign bankers in Jakarta have trouble concealing their admiration for his audacity even as they despair of his cavalier approach to balance-sheet realities. His brinkmanship...
Behind all the arguments about defaulting, restructuring and re-establishing capital, there is nearly universal puzzlement at what motivates Suharto to put his country, and himself, at such risk. Part of the answer can be found 275 miles east of Jakarta in the central Java village of Kemusu, where he was born. There, for centuries, peasants have done the bidding of the village chief in exchange for his protection, governed by a social code as intricate as the shared irrigation system. Deeply superstitious, the men of Kemusu have changed little in the half-century since Indonesia won its independence from...