Forgive and not forget

Should the nation forgive former president Soeharto, now that he is an old and sick man? Muslim scholar Abdurrahman Wahid seems to think so. He leads the campaign to pardon Soeharto, stop the ongoing corruption investigation and end all public condemnation against the former tyrant once and for all. Gus Dur, as the chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama is popularly known, says Islam teaches people to be merciful, and therefore the Islamic way is to forgive the 78-year-old Soeharto, who is recovering from a mild stroke.

Besides teaching people to be compassionate, however, Islam also inculcates justice. If one uses strict Islamic law, which prescribes the cutting off of a thief's hand, then Soeharto and his clan would in no time become limbless if the Time magazine's allegation that the family stole $15 billion from the country could be proven. While we are it, we should also send Setya Novanto, his defenders and co-conspirators, to the executioners for their part in the recent reported Rp 546 billion plundering of Bank Bali.

While we do not advocate the syariah Islamic legal code for this multireligious country, we use this illustration to show that one can look at this issue from different perspectives, even within Islam. There is a time to be forgiving; there is also a time to see that justice is upheld. We leave it to religious experts to discuss which of these should be applied in the case of Soeharto.

Gus Dur's proposal nevertheless is one possible option as the nation grapples with the question of what to do with its once- revered leader, who has now become a subject of public ridicule.

President B.J. Habibie clearly has no intention of prosecuting his predecessor and political mentor, and has seemingly tried to hide behind complex legal procedures to slow down the corruption investigation and avoid a court trial. Not surprisingly, the investigation has come to a dead-end with not enough evidence to pin anything on the old man. But with his transitory term about to end, Habibie is now desperate to present something to the People's Consultative Assembly in November. His right-hand man, Minister/Secretary of State Muladi, has come up with the idea of a political solution to the Soeharto issue as an interim to a legal settlement, which would most likely take a long time, and certainly not occur in the short life of the current regime.

Muladi has never fully elaborated on what exactly he or Habibie have in mind, but the idea is for leaders of the main political parties to get together and come up with a decision to determine the fate of the former president. Gus Dur has come up with his idea. The ruling Golkar party, meanwhile, is proposing that Soeharto be made to present a separate accountability report for the 72 days he ruled between his reelection to office in March 1998 and his resignation on May 21 of that year.

All these proposals about what to do with Soeharto have one thing in common: they all try to limit the scope. The corruption investigation is limited to bank accounts in Soeharto's name when most of the wealth is apparently in his children's names. Gus Dur's proposal for forgiveness limits the scope to allegations of corruption. Golkar's plan is the most ridiculous of all, limiting Soeharto's wrongdoings to the last 72 days of his power.

Soeharto's greatest misdeeds went far beyond what has been portrayed in these proposals: the 32 years of his misrule, power abuses and injustices that had such a devastating impact on the country and left such a legacy. No amount of money, even all the wealth allegedly amassed by his family and cronies, could ever repair the damage and destruction that this man and his regime inflicted on this country and its people.

The regime was built and survived upon lie after lie, which began the moment Soeharto took charge of the Army in the wake of the Oct. 1, 1965 coup, and lasted until the day he stepped down from office last year. In between, there was the mystery surrounding the 1965 coup, the way Soeharto secured the transfer of power from president Sukarno in March 1966, the 500,000 or so killed in the Army-led backlash against communism, the hundreds of thousands of suspected communists who were sentenced to hard labor without a fair trial, the East Timor invasion and ensuing killings of the people there, the Aceh military operation. The list goes on and on.

Any political decision on the fate of Soeharto should look at all misdeeds committed during his entire presidency. This would not be intended to exact revenge on an elderly and sick man, but would enable the nation to learn the whole truth about this regime. The nation must also ensure that justice is done for the hundreds of thousands, or probably millions, of people who were the victims of Soeharto's wrath. Habibie made a breakthrough last year when he restored the name of H.R. Dharsono, posthumously. But Dharsono, an Army lieutenant general and critic of Soeharto, was only one of millions of people who were victims of Soeharto's miscarriages of justice.

Rather than pursuing his campaign to pardon Soeharto, Gus Dur would do well to revive his plan to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, styled on the South African institution tasked with digging into the apartheid white regime. We certainly find it difficult to forgive a man for something that even he is not prepared to admit. But the truth must first be brought out in public view before we can even talk about reconciliation. Forgive Soeharto? Yes by all means. But we cannot simply forget all the injustices he committed.