This guy was no great statesman, why is everyone falling all over themselves to send condolences to this genocidal maniac? Apart from that, he too was involved in the "Ganyang Malaysia Campaign", how soon people forget. His legacy is a trail of murdered and broken bodies, not forgetting the deeply traumatised survivors, scarred forever. Apart from being a murdering maniac and despot he was corrupt, excuse me not corrupt but bloody corrupted. Just google with the following words "suharto killings chinese timor", you will get 69,400 references for this murdering son of a bitch. Guess who defends this SOB, another has been. He did not order the killing," Mahathir said. Probably "someone who looks like him and acts like him". We know all about Mahathir, don't we, "mudah lupa"? May his companions be Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and many others like him, you know the place. - edit

According to the United Nations and the World Bank, there was much more than just average corruption and nepotism during and after Suharto's reign: Suharto tops the list of embezzlers with an estimated $15-35 billion, followed by former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, former president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) Mobutu Sese Seko, and Sani Abacha of Nigeria. Attempts to try Suharto on charges of genocide have failed not because of his failing health but above all because of the unwillingness of the post-1999 political establishment to openly deal with the past. Indonesia experienced no profound political change in the wake of Suharto's ouster. The country has been ruled by the same business and military elites, with the exception of the brief presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid, who was forced out of power when he sought to separate religion from the state, apologize to the victims of the1965 massacres, and introduce social changes in Indonesia's market-driven system.

What followed was a military takeover and a months long orgy of terror, the mass murder of P.K.I. members, citizens of Chinese origin, left-leaning men and women, intellectuals, artists, and anyone who was denounced by neighbors or foes. Massacres were mainly performed by the military and by the right-wing religious groups who went on a rampage against "atheists." Between 500,000 and 3 million people vanished in several months, making the Indonesian killing fields some of the most intensive in world history. Thousands of teachers were murdered. Artists were silenced, film studios closed down. Places where intellectuals of different races used to mingle were destroyed and replaced by the anonymous concrete walls of shopping malls and parking lots. Books were burned, including those of Southeast Asia's greatest novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who became a long-term prisoner of conscience in Buru concentration camp. Pramoedya, until his death in 2006, never forgave Suharto. But not for his personal suffering, rather for "having no culture; for turning Indonesia into a market; for destroying Sukarno's spirit of enthusiasm."

Indonesia after 1965 was experiencing its "Year Zero," like Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It closed itself to the world for several years, until those who were targeted were rounded up and slaughtered. According to eyewitnesses, the Brantas River in East Java, as well as others throughout the archipelago, was clogged with corpses and red with blood. Indonesia is an enormous archipelago. It was easy to suppress information, to keep its people in oblivion, to bombard them with propaganda, to isolate them from the rest of the world. No films but Hollywood and local production, with some syrupy soap from all over the world. No serious topics. Only pop, outdated music. The Chinese language was banned, and so were words like "atheism" and "class." For the rest of the world that was barred from learning about the tragedy of 1965-66, it was easy to believe the mass media, which hailed Suharto as an ally and statesman. The Indonesian people, for the most part, were terrorized into silence, with no memory and no desires except to move rhythmically to the latest pop tunes and prayers, close to starvation but grinning as ordered, with no complex thoughts and questions; lobotomized.

Then came East Timor. In 1975, Suharto sent troops to the newly independent nation that had long suffered from Portuguese colonial neglect—a country that finally won independence and sought to adopt a social (not Communist) course. What followed was a massacre not unlike the one in 1965 (and performed by many familiar faces). Two hundred thousand people—one third of the entire nation—vanished. It seemed that Indonesia was determined to break the record for brutality.Behind the windows lies an enormous, ruined, uncompetitive, and uneducated country, suffering from decades of fear that has left a legacy of blind obedience and, finally, of intellectual stagnation.

Tens of millions of Indonesians can still hear the cries of terror of those who were hacked and beaten to death, decades ago. But they have learned to doubt their own eyes and ears. They have learned to obey. Suharto may die a free man, surrounded by elites, by servile compliments. But surely even he will not be able to avoid some memories, even in a coma. It is not easy to forget a million people, a million deaths. Standing next to each other, they can fill enormous space and their screams, coming in unison, can break the walls of any hospital—even a private one. And once these screams and cries reach him, he will know that he departs a criminal . The source .