AS rioting and looting in Jakarta threaten to give way to anarchy, the future of President Suharto of Indonesia, Asia's longest-serving ruler, now returning from an ill-timed visit to Egypt, looks increasingly grim. His 32-year-old blood-stained regime is in its last throes and, sooner or later, he will be deposed by the mob or, more likely, the Army. Indonesia tolerated the repression and corruption of the Suharto Government only while the country enjoyed all the benefits of rapid economic growth. But the Asian financial crisis has brought the Indonesian economy to its knees. The currency has collapsed amid a mountain of foreign debt: inflation and unemployment are so high they can hardly be measured.
The students have been to the fore in demonstrating against the president and his family and friends who control or own much of the country's economic infrastructure, but when young lives were lost earlier this week it provided the catalyst for mass demonstrations. Discontent is widespread, if not against the authorities, then against the wealthy Chinese business community. The police have shown themselves to be trigger-happy, though the military have so far employed greater restraint. They would not find it easy to restore order with television cameramen flashing their pictures of what is happening on the streets around the world.
There is not an obvious democratic solution to Indonesia's problems. Opposition parties have been suppressed and the national assembly is stuffed with placemen. Burning and looting are no aid to a distant economic recovery. Many of those Indonesia needs for its survival are fleeing the country or are on standby to leave if their national governments decide to pull them out. The last thing this fourth most populous country needs is for Suharto to hold on to power or wait until he is driven from office. It will be difficult to construct a government that can bring hope to an impoverished people and reassure the international community upon whose help and understanding Indonesia is dependent. The best that can be hoped for is a protracted reconstruction: the worst does not bear contemplation.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article