Suharto leaves legacy of stability in region

By Bill Tarrant

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - As Indonesia's former autocratic president Suharto lay gasping for life this month, authoritarian figures from neighboring countries hurried to his bedside to whisper words of encouragement.

Mahathir Mohamad, the 82-year-old former prime minister of Malaysia whose time in office overlapped Suharto's for nearly two decades, visited on January 14, as did the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, 61.

A day earlier, Singapore's founding father and first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, 84, was at Suharto's bedside.

Suharto's death, which came on Sunday, marks the passing of an era in Southeast Asia.

Suharto, Mahathir and Lee were in power when countries in the region were growing so strongly they were being touted by the World Bank as the "East Asia Miracle", an achievement in which individual liberty took a back seat to economic development.

They can thank Suharto, 86, for being instrumental in bringing the stability that allowed the region to grow.

"Why are all these old guys rushing to his bedside? He brought stability to Indonesia and he brought stability to the neighborhood and that's something for which they are very thankful," Michael Vatikiotis, author of "Indonesian Politics Under Suharto", said before the strongman's death.

"And it's unquestioned he brought that stability. You can argue the corruption and repression, but you can't argue about that," Vatikiotis said.

CONFRONTATION

Suharto's 32 years as president of the world's fourth-most populous country, a key supplier of primary commodities and straddling strategic sea lanes, was a mostly placid era of growth and political stability that came at a cost of brutal suppression of dissent and almost unprecedented corruption.

Things were far different when Suharto came to power after crushing a botched coup in 1965 blamed on the communist party.

Sukarno, Indonesia's mercurial first president, had declared a "Confrontation" against Malaysia in 1964, which then included Singapore along with the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Sukarno believed all of Borneo belonged to Indonesia and announced his intention to arm a million leftist peasants and workers to do battle with Malaysia. This was at the height of the Vietnam War when Washington feared nations of Southeast Asia would fall like dominoes to a communist juggernaut.

In the months after the abortive coup, Suharto set about destroying the communist party as a political force.

Bloody purges saw up to 500,000 alleged communists and sympathizers killed in one of history's worst massacres. While much of the killing was done by militias and vigilante groups, at the least Suharto's army did little to stop it.