Graceful exit

Graceful exit

For 32 years, President Soeharto has firmly, and largely effectively, guided the development of a vast, crowded, multi- racial archipelago.

Since he came to power in the mid-1960s, during a time of terrible bloodletting openly encouraged by the military, he took Indonesia from dreadful poverty to modest prosperity. Even in the horror of the current violence, that should be acknowledged.

But what President Soeharto has also done is stayed in power far too long and created conditions which risk destroying all he has achieved. He has cultivated and promoted a small clique of business people, his own family members hugely prominent among them, denied all opportunities for the flowering of democracy, and produced an explosive mixture not much different from that existing when he took power.

The president, and his nation, are now paying the price of that side of his legacy, a price that risks wiping out all the hard-won gains of the past three decades.

Two groups have become prominent in the push for his ousting. One is the students, who from campuses across the nation have, generally with great restraint and maturity, demonstrated peacefully, in a spirit of compromise with the military given the duty of guarding and limiting their reach. This group has been seeking peaceful change towards a democratic system, in line with international norms.

The other group, which has exploded so horrifically onto Jakarta's streets in the past few days, is the very poor and the underclass. They failed to benefit from the economic miracle and have suffered the most from its collapse. They emerged from their poor slum shacks, after seeing prices of basic commodities rise to levels at which they could not survive, and decided, with that uncontrollable mass will which has fueled so many revolutions, that they had suffered enough. Others, who they identified as the cause of their misery, must suffer in their turn.

The impulse to loot, to kill, to destroy, cannot be condoned, but it is easily understood.

Today, in a subdued Jakarta, with many in mourning and many others hiding in fear behind barred doors, the key question must be, what happens next?

What should happen is that President Soeharto should step aside, genuinely hand over power, in favor of a council of national unity.

That council should consist of a cross-section of all of the individuals who have emerged as likely representatives of the people in the past turbulent months, from Amien Rais to Megawati Soekarnoputri.

No one leader has emerged who could step into President Soeharto's shoes -- he has made sure of that -- and a council of near-equals could well be a valuable transitional form towards eventual democracy.

Face demands that President Soeharto should be granted some honorary title, and there is no reason why his contribution should not be recognized in that way, but he must not only genuinely hand over power, but must be seen to be doing so.

It is clear that the students, the mob, and the ordinary citizens of Indonesia, will not be satisfied with anything less. Such a genuine, graceful gesture, would surely be looked upon kindly by history, and would allow the people of Indonesia to begin the massive task of rebuilding a shattered economy and national spirit.

-- Bangkok Post