Sukarno - Suharto - Indonesia - Henk Madrotter

 

Sukarno (1st President) and Suharto (2nd)

Henk Madrotter has left a new comment clarifying the differences between Sukarno and Suharto -


Suharto, Honorary Knight Grand Cross (Military Division) of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (G.C.B.)

Suharto was  born in the same area as Sukarno, under much the same conditions, poor farmers.... He was very corrupt but not as corrupt as his kids... And very much in to Kejawen, the religion that pre-dates Islam and is still widely practiced in Middle and East Java... 

(President Soeharto sold out Javanese spiritualism)

Very pragmatic in a very cruel way, the Petrus action in the 80's is a good example of that. He decided that something should be done about criminals, so death squads started targeting anybody with a tattoo, bodies would float in the rivers in Jakarta every day... So if you see older men with horrible scars on their arms or chest, it''s where they burned off or cut out their tattoo back then. 

Suharto's son Tommy was photographed in Bali at a tennis match with a really bad wig and ridiculous glasses while he was officially in jail for having a judge killed. Read about Suka Miskin, the jail in Bandung where all the corruptors go, not much has changed

Sukarno is still very much loved here, especially by "the people", the lower middle class and the poor. My father in law used to go on a yearly pilgrimage with friends from his village, visiting the graves from all the Wali (the first folks who brought Islam to Indonesia) on the North Coast of Java and their trip would always end in Blitar, the small town where he, Sukarno, was from and where he is buried, in East-Java.

I visited the place a few years ago and I was blown away. Not by the town, there isn't much there, but the grave site itself is an incredible place. Each day hundreds and hundreds of pilgrims come and pray at Sukarno's grave, buried under the daily fresh flowers, there's an energy there that just cannot be described, you really have to experience it.... 

Friendly easy going Muslims. The only terrorists are those working for the CIA and Mossad.

Kid with leprosy

Indonesians are usually very hospitable.

Indonesia has as big a population as the USA. The two top regiments are very friendly with the Israelis (Thanks to Prabowo, who may be the next president)

Slums of Jakarta.

Coast of Java.

Suharto brought wealth to parts of Jakarta.

Sukarno

- never could understand the amount of energy and time Sukarno spent on music, his deep hatred for The Beatles and his war against that "degenerate type of Western music" Rock 'n' Roll, what he called "Nig Nag Nog" (A Javanese term for irritating noise"). 

If, in the early 60's, you walked around Bandung with "Beatles hair" you would be arrested, brought to the city center and they would shave you, in public.... Loads of songs that he banned etc. while folks were starving and poverty was wide spread, as was endemic corruption (read Mochtar Lubis' Twilight In Jakarta)....

SUHARTO

Comment - 

Who shot dead Suharto's wife? Was it the son named Bangbang or the son named Tommy - Tommy shot someone dead in the Hilton (where Thatcher stayed). Tommy reportedly ran the trade in heroin. Tommy played golf while he was supposed to be in jail.