Former Indonesian President Suharto dead

FORMER president Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than 30 years, died yesterday surrounded by his family at a Jakarta hospital. He was 86. "Father has returned to God," Mr Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hariyanti "Tutut" Rukmana, said, breaking down in tears. "We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them . . . may he be absolved of all his mistakes." His death yesterday came more than three weeks after he was admitted to hospital with heart, lung and kidney problems. He had surprised his doctors by his resilience despite being in a critical condition. Doctors said Mr Suharto had suffered multiple organ failure overnight and was resuscitated but remained unconscious before dying. "Our former president Suharto has passed away about 1.10pm (5.10pm AEDT)," Jakarta sub-district police chief Dicky Sondani said from the hospital. He was a dictator whose economic successes were overshadowed by a legacy of bloodshed, human rights abuses and corruption. His tenure was marked by repression, from the killings of at least 500,000 communists and their sympathisers after the abortive coup that saw him seize power in 1966, to the invading East Timor and quelling separatist movements in Aceh and Papua. Although he steered the sprawling archipelago nation through an economic boom, making it notably self-sufficient in rice, billions of dollars ended up in the hands of friends and relatives as cronyism and corruption ran riot. He stepped down in 1998 amid deadly riots and mass pro-democracy protests that were sparked by the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Opinion on Mr Suharto's rule remains divided in Indonesia. After leaving office he dropped out of public view and avoided criminal trial for massive corruption allegations by citing poor health. Doctors said two strokes left him with some permanent brain damage. Attempts to bring him to justice for alleged human rights atrocities in East Timor, which he invaded in 1975, as well as Aceh and Papua, have also been stymied by a lack of evidence. "We could not have expected a leader for Indonesia worse than Suharto. But he was no Pol Pot," head of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights in Jakarta, Asmara Nababan, said. A doctor who treated in his final days Mr Suharto said: "We have worked our best . . . God has decided otherwise." "At about 9am or 10am, the condition of the heart and blood pressure remained up and down and we, to be truthful, were already beginning to give up, because the condition of his brain was already very serious," he said.