How a rampaging mob broke Suharto's 32-year grip on power
When former Indonesian president Suharto died yesterday in the hush of a critical-care room in Jakarta, the contrast with his political demise a decade ago could not have been starker.
By the time he stood down on May 21, 1998, he had been in power for 32 years. The world's longest-reigning dictator, Suharto ruled with an iron fist: an estimated 1 million people died or were imprisoned on his watch.
The last 1,100 deaths came in the final days of his rule as unprecedented, nationwide protests reached Jakarta. The capital of the world's fourth-most populous nation - an ethnically diverse archipelago - descended into anarchy. The scars of that violence can still be seen on both the society and the city.
The troubles broke out as Suharto visited Egypt on a rare foreign mission. His timing showed self-confidence, given that the regional financial meltdown was at its height and the pain of economic collapse was being felt by ordinary people. High levels of growth, development and stability had fuelled the legitimacy of Suharto's authoritarian rule; recession laid its reality bare and exposed its corrupt roots.
The violence began with mobs of disenfranchised young men looting and torching swathes of the city over three days. The Glodok Chinatown was targeted, along with multi-storey shopping malls and other totems of the wealthy, pro-Suharto elite. Dozens of ethnic Chinese women were raped.