Nation & World

<< Previous   of   Next >> Associated Press  (click to enlarge) Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (front row, second from left) joins Suharto's relatives and offer prayers before the body of former Indonesian President Suharto at his house in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday. Former dictator Suharto died Sunday at age 86. (click to enlarge) Former Indonesian President Suharto   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Do you have a news tip? newstips@heraldnet.com | 425.339.3400   Published: Monday, January 28, 2008 Former Indonesian leader left bloody trail of brutality Herald news services 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 over an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died Sunday 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. Like many Indonesians, Suharto went by only one name. He had been in poor health for years after suffering several strokes and other ailments. He was rushed to the hospital Jan. 4 with anemia and low blood pressure. By Sunday morning, he had suffered multiple organ failure, and his family gave doctors permission to take him off life support. Many people in Indonesia express a nostalgia for the Suharto days as a peaceful time when rice was plentiful and beggars few. Economists generally credit him with cutting poverty from almost 60 percent to 15 percent by 1990. He died without being held formally to account for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians during anti-communist purges of 1965-66. His claims of ill health, backed by a Supreme Court ruling, shielded him from prosecution on charges of embezzling almost $600 million during his presidency. Estimates for the number killed during his bloody rise to power range from a government figure of 78,000 to 1 million cited by U.S. historians Barbara Harff and Ted Robert Gurr, who have published books on Indonesia's history. It was the worst mass slaughter in Southeast Asia's modern history after the Khmer Rouge killing fields in Cambodia. A frenzy of anti-communist violence stained rivers with blood and littered the countryside with the bodies of teachers, farmers and others. "They used to dump the bodies here," recalled Surien, a 70-year-old woman who lived near a bay used as an execution ground. "People called it the beach of stinking corpses because of the smell." The CIA provided lists of thousands of leftists, including trade union members, intellectuals and schoolteachers, many of whom were executed or sent to remote prisons. Another 183,000 died due to killings, disappearances, hunger and illness during Indonesia's 1975-1999 occupation of East Timor, according to a U.N. commission. Similar abuses left more than 100,000 dead in West Papua, according a local human rights group. Another 15,000 died during a 29-year separatist rebellion in Aceh province. In recent interviews around the city of Blitar, a former communist stronghold, survivors of the atrocities recounted a life on the run, living in caves, being beaten and beheadings of other captives. "I am disappointed. I saw great cruelties and am lucky I am not dead," said Talam, whose simple two-room home overlooks a valley dotted with overgrown mass graves. He described how he was detained by police but escaped. He stumbled across dead bodies in shallow graves and slept in dank caves with hundreds of others, eating what the jungle had to offer for 50 days, until being picked up. Talam, a former member of a left-wing union for park rangers, said he was tortured and beaten repeatedly during interrogations while detained on remote Buru island, where about 12,000 political prisoners were held, 1,100 miles east of the capital, Jakarta. "Why has no one been put on trial?" he asked.

1. Boeing tip ill considered, poorly timed 2. Sound Transit jeered by county leaders 3. Clock ticking for Boeing contract 4. Barbecue ashes blamed for Lynnwood fire 5. Questions abound after Mariners' lose in 15 innings 6. Mill Creek planning for a second 'urban village' 7. Conserve and you can save, PUD says 8. Everett hospital revises Colby expansion 9. Monroe priest on leave over allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor 10. Animal shelter accused of discrimination 2 - Top 10 Stories Most Talked about 3 - Top 10 Stories Most Emailed

• PCC illegally chops three trees in Edmonds • Local lottery winner takes biggest ever prize • Man shot to death south of Everett • Terrace seeks to sharpen dog ordinance's teeth • Terrace council OKs controversial housing development • An era ends: the curtain falls on the Sonics • Red, White, and Blue: Parade photoalbum • World famous, and headed to Everett • The man in charge • Arlington Fly-In marks 40th anniversary this year • County home market offers low rates, lower prices, wide variety of prope ... • Good investments may be boring but profitable • People Watching - July 2008 • Melody Biringer a wide-ranging entrepreneur • Fryelands industrial park growing in Monroe • Out of the Blue Aviation expands flight training • Paul Allen’s rare Flying Heritage Collection becomes latest aviation att ...