Indonesian dictator whose 30-year rule was built on ruthless repression, cronyism and manipulation of the world's rival superpowers
With the death of the former Indonesian president Suharto, at the age of 86, we are reminded that even the most stubborn dictatorship comes to an end. Despite predictions by his ruling clique that he would lead Indonesia into the 21st century, his term of office, which began with bloodshed in 1967, ended equally bloodily in 1998.
Although known as the "smiling general", Suharto had a complex character, which, for most of his lifetime, successfully deflected analysis. He was acclaimed as a man of modest origins who had been impelled to take power out of disgust for the corruption of the last years of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president from its independence from the Netherlands in 1949 until 1967. This myth coexisted for years with the public knowledge that Suharto presided over a regime in which his closest friends controlled huge monopolies and lucrative concessions, while his children acquired assets worth billions of dollars.