Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
thousand on Lombok. Around two hundred thousand were imprisoned, mostly without trial,
more than half of them for ten years or more while their families were stigmatized well into
the 1990s. Suharto officially became the second president of Indonesia in March 1968, a po-
sition he held for more than thirty years.
Indonesia under Suharto
Suharto's
New Order
policy of attracting foreign investment, curbing inflation and re-en-
tering the global economy was largely successful. It was helped enormously by Indonesia's
massive
natural resources
of copper, tin, timber and oil. The
economic situation
of the
country improved and the material prosperity of the average Indonesian rose.
However, the economic benefits came with a price as alongside this the government ac-
quired almost complete control.
Political opposition
was crushed and the
media
silenced.
Corruption was rife and the policy of transmigration, which moved landless people from Java
to outlying islands, caused enormous ethnic strife. In every election from 1971 to 1997 the
government party, Sekretariat Bersama Golongan Karya, known as
Golkar
, won the majority
of seats in the House of Representatives and then re-elected Suharto as president.
The
economic crisis
of the late 1990s that decimated the economies of Southeast Asia sav-
aged Indonesia as well. Prices of imports (including food) rose sharply, and a series of riots in
early 1998, centred on Java, targeted Chinese businesses - long the scapegoats of Indonesi-
an unrest. Gradually, Indonesian anger turned against President Suharto and his family, who
were seen to have been the biggest winners in the Indonesian economic success story.
Student rioting in May 1998 led to more widespread unrest and, eventually, to
Suharto's
resignation
on May 21. He spent the ten years until his death on January 27, 2008, dodging
corruption charges - in 2000 he was judged as unfit to stand trial. Transparency International,
an international anticorruption NGO, estimates that he stole $15-35 billion, possibly topping
the worldwide list of corrupt politicians.
After Suharto
Following Suharto proved a tough job. The next two presidents,
B.J. Habibie
and
Ab-
durrahman Wahid
, lasted only short periods of time and on July 23, 2001
Megawati
Sukarnoputri
became president. Megawati - darling of the Balinese, to whom she is known
simply as Mega - was regarded in Bali with something approaching fanaticism, based on the
fact that her maternal grandmother (Sukarno's mother) was Balinese. Starting her presidency
on a wave of optimism, she proved an ineffectual leader.
Indonesia hit the world headlines on
October 12, 2002
, when
bombs
planted in the heart
of tourist Bali, at the
Sari Club
and
Paddy's Irish Bar
in Kuta, exploded, killing more than
two hundred people, the majority of them tourists but with dozens of Indonesian victims also.
A third bomb exploded outside the US consulate in Denpasar. The attacks were carried out
