Shaman confirm Soeharto link<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): In O.G. Roeder's The Smiling General, the author
\nwrote that Soeharto once obeyed his trusted shaman in spending
\nthe night of Sept. 30, 1965, \"worshiping God at a place where the
\nwaters meet\".<\/p>\n
As everybody knows, that night has become one of the grim
\nnightmares in the country's black history. At least seven Army
\nsenior generals were brutally killed by a group, later identified
\nas members of the then banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).<\/p>\n
But Roeder's account is not just another version of where
\nSoeharto was on that fateful night 34 years ago.<\/p>\n
It is also about the influential role of shamans.<\/p>\n
Persistent claims of an association between shamans and
\nSoeharto, who was elected as the country's president several
\nmonths after the bloody night, were circulated widely during his
\n32-year-rule, which ended in May last year.<\/p>\n
Since his resignation, many tabloids have run articles on
\nSoeharto's alleged connection with supernaturalists.<\/p>\n
The link became much clearer last month when five shamans, led
\nby 45-year-old Mas Haryo Panuntun, attended Pertamina hospital in
\nSouth Jakarta on the fifth day of Soeharto's 10-day treatment for
\na mild stroke.<\/p>\n
Attired in caftans, the five attracted the media's attention
\nat the hospital. Unlike the many media-shy guests of Soeharto,
\nthe shamans were unfazed by the media blitz and TV camera lights.<\/p>\n
At his home in Pekayon, East Jakarta, Haryo, whose real name
\nis Herry Sukamto, told the Jakarta Post on Tuesday about the
\nhospital visit: \"I poured water obtained from the Istiqlal Grand
\nMosque (in Central Jakarta) in a room next to Soeharto's.\"<\/p>\n
Together with four other shamans, his wife Agatri Pawenang,
\nassistant Muhammad Ridwan, Nurhayanie and Putu Ariasa, they then
\nsang Dandhanggula, an ancient Javanese song \"to pray for an
\nailing person\".<\/p>\n
The shamans's role in helping cure Soeharto, who was rushed to
\nthe hospital in the afternoon of July 20 and left the VVIP room
\n10 days later, remains unclear.<\/p>\n
Haryo quoted Siti Hardiyanti \"Tutut\" Rukmana, Soeharto's
\neldest daughter, as saying the former president had been ill for
\ndays before he was taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
\"Several days before her father was admitted to the hospital,
\nMbak Tutut complained to me that her father's illness was
\nworsening, and she then asked me to help cure her father by
\npraying.\"<\/p>\n
During the July 24 visit, Haryo and the other shamans were not
\nallowed to meet the VVIP patient directly.<\/p>\n
Haryo said he saw Soeharto through a glass wall of the ward
\nwhere he was receiving treatment. He said the shamans could
\neasily have performed their mystical efforts in the same room as
\nSoeharto, with no significant objections from the patient's
\nguards.<\/p>\n
\"In fact, we could cure him from our homes using what we call
\nlong distance therapy, which we already had done. But we favored
\napproaching closer to Soeharto's physical presence in a bid to
\nadd power to the medicinal treatment.\"<\/p>\n
Haryo said he had known Tutut since their first meeting in
\nSurakarta, Central Java, in the early 1980s at the burial of
\nTutut's grandmother.<\/p>\n
Haryo claimed that there was no payment for the shamans
\nservice from either Mbak Tutut or other relatives.<\/p>\n
\"We did it mainly to pay our respects to the former country's
\nstrongman,\" he said.<\/p>\n
However, Haryo, who claimed to specialize in curing the deaf
\nand people with eye problems, quickly added:<\/p>\n
\"We'll accept a payment if in the future Mbak Tutut feels our
\nefforts are useful for her father's recovery.\" (asa)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/shaman-confirm-soeharto-link-1447893297",
"image": ""
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