Roundup: Soeharto: Hate or love him?

Some want to put him on trial, while others insist that he be treated humanitarianly, as 84-year- old Soeharto, Indonesia's second president, is battling with degrading health and tasting the sweetness and bitterness of the seventh anniversary of his downfall on May 21, 1998.

College students took to the streets in cities like Jakarta, Yogyat, Bandung and Suyanto on the anniversary, demanding the government to put Soeharto to court for the alleged corruption and atrocity that he and his family members once committed during his 32-year-old rule of the world's largest Muslim country.

Half a month earlier, while he was hospitalized for intestinal bleeding that endangered his brain, heart and liver, government officials and Congress members rushed to visit him on bed and called on the society to treat him in a humanitarian way.

On May 10, after seeing Soeharto in hospital, President Susilo Banbang Yudhoyono told the press that it is the nation's tradition to respect a former country leader and the government has responsibility to give him the best medicare.

Regarding to Soeharto's alleged crimes, the president made no positive response, saying that under the current circumstances, it is not suitable to talk about such questions.

While his days are counted, hate of the legendary man can still be felt, as nepotism, rampant corruption, stagnant economy as well as huge gap between the rich and the poor have been attributed to his long-standing New Order regime.

Love is other side of the coin, as his ruling brought rice self- sufficiency, high literacy rates, infrastructure expansion and increasing exports to the 200 million Indonesians, together with handsome rewards for his loyalists, most of whom now stand as pillars of the country's economy or even politics.

"Wherever the political winds blew, Soeharto was unquestionably the dominant factor in Indonesia. People were either for him or against him......He was generally respected for his effectiveness, but quietly resented for his suffocating control, " said political analyst Wimar Witoelar in an editorial published on Jakarta Post here Monday.

"Four presidents, including the current one, were unable to bring him to justice," he added.

Politics Professor Liswanda from the Jagamada University in Yogyat recently rooted up the phenomenon by asserting that some politicians and officials in the current government once hugely benefited from Soeharto himself and now reward him with protection.

As we know, he added, all Indonesians above the age of 25 have something of Soeharto in them. His presence meant betterment of many lives at the cost of public deprivation.

Despite of his strongly protective network, people who hate him now apparently try to put his fate on stake, as the seventh anniversary of his downfall coincides with the blistering anti- corruption campaign that has been just kicked off by Susilio, the sixth president of Indonesia in office.

Meanwhile, people who love him render his sick body and humanitarianism as excuses for him to evade punishment. To the Indonesians, this is not something new. In the past, each time there was political danger, Soeharto would be hospitalized.

Just as analysts said, his doctors not only took care of his health, but his life and all his affiliates' future.

Out of all the entanglement about Soeharto, the current government has designed its anti-corruption campaign as one of the most important measures to revitalize the whole country. However, unfortunately, the source of corruption has been identified by the public as the old man who was the most long-standing president of the country, but not the dozens of officials and CEOs of state- owned enterprises who were detained in recent months or will be detained in the coming days.

Seven years away from the government, Soeharto is again jammed into the center of political whirlpool. His fate now relates not only to that of the people, but to that of the government.

Source: Xinhua