Suharto born

Suharto children
When did suharto become president
Suharto grandchildren

•

Young Soeharto: The Making of a Soldier, 1921–1945
By David Jenkins | Melbourne University Press | $39.99 | 512 pages

It’s been more than twenty years since the question that hung around during the long years of Soeharto’s military-backed presidency of Indonesia — what next? — was answered. After stepping down in 1998, Soeharto lingered in his Jakarta home until his death a decade later, protected against feeble attempts to bring him to account for the violence and corruption during his reign.

Even in power, the former army general had been a much blander, if more successful, dictator than his predecessor Sukarno or contemporaries like Burma’s Ne Win, Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko and the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos.

So has David Jenkins’s long-awaited multi-volume biography missed its moment, at least for the wider reading public? This first volume suggests not. Written with Jenkins’s characteristic clarity and verve, and painstakingly sourced, it is an enthralling read. As the list of acknowledgements shows, he managed to speak with most of the key surviving figures from t

•

Introduction

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the editors and publishers of Indonesia and the Malay World for allowing me to publish this revised version of a paper that originally appeared in their journal. The reference details are as follows :
Hitchcock, M., 1998. « Tourism, Taman Mini and national identity ». Indonesia and the Malay World, 26 : 74 (June), 124-35. (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/).
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance received in preparing this paper from the London Metropolitan University, the British Academy and the ASEAN-EU University Network Programme. My thanks are due to SOAS Library and the Brynmor Jones Library, Hull.

1Many of the colonies and former dependencies that achieved independence in the second half of the 20^th century are amalgams of diverse peoples with distinctive languages and customs. In common with the older established countries, these emergent nations have looked to exemplary pasts to construct narratives justifying their birth and continued existence. Much has been written about the role of « invented traditions » (Hobsbawm

•

From left: Sigit Harjojudanto, Siti Hardijanti Rukmana (Tutut), Siti Hutami Endang Adiningsih (Mamiek), Soeharto, Hutomo Mandala Putra (Tommy), Siti Hediati Hariyadi (Titiek), and Bambang Trihatmodjo. Photo by Merdeka.com.

Soeharto left office in 1998 with a reputation as one of the most corrupt leaders in the world. He and his family are estimated by some to have accumulated between US$15 billion and US$35 billion during his 32 years in power. Twenty years after Soeharto stepped down as president and 10 years after his death, the Soeharto family has still only repaid a small portion of assets owed to the state – and even that was only after state prosecutors seized the bank accounts of the family’s now defunct Supersemar Foundation. Prosecutors claimed that the foundation was not used for charity, as intended, but as a political slush fund for Soeharto.

From the 1980s until he stepped down, Soeharto’s children were granted monopolies to enable them to make their fortunes. Siti Hardijanti Rukmana (Tutut) won a contract to build toll highways, Hutomo Mandala P