KEY POINTS:
A decade after was he pushed from power former President Suharto's footprint on Indonesia has remained so strong that the world's fourth-most populous (226 million) country struggles to deal with it consequences.
How much good did he do? How much harm? And how to deal with a legacy of brutality and corruption which some still want to deny.
Suharto ruled for 32 years. He boosted growth and kept a lid on communal violence. But he left in his wake a brutal Army, crippled economy, a neutered political system, and dysfunctional national institutions.
"Suharto ran Indonesia like a mafia don," says Jeffrey Winters, professor of political economy at Northwestern University, Chicago. "Everything turned on the don, all business went through the don, the don was the source of security, and he destroyed everything, Parliament, the rule of law, the intellectual community, and turned the police and military into his personal instruments."
Not everyone agrees.
"Yes, there was corruption. Yes, he gave favours to his family and his friends. But there was real growth and real progress," said Lee Kuan Yew, longtime autocratic prime minister of neighbouring Singapore after visiting Suharto in hospital last month.
Suharto came to power in 1965, crushing what was officially described as a Beijing-backed communist coup. Communism seemed a powerful threat to Western nations in those days. In an atmosphere of apprehension many Western countries - not least Australia and New Zealand being so close to Indonesia's great size - much preferred it being an independent nation to a communist one.
But it is estimated as many as 500,000 Indonesians suspected of being communists or sympathisers died in an Army-inspired bloodbath in the months after he took power. Over the next three decades, Suharto's Army continued to kill - on student campuses, in the rebellious provinces of Aceh and Papua, and in East Timor - where about 200,000 died from war and famine, as well as in "mysterious shootings" of criminals.
Elsewhere in the sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands much of his rule was relatively peaceful, but stability often came at the cost of repression of dissent. Thousands of political prisoners were kept in labour camps on Buru Island, including members of the intelligentsia.
Independent observers have said violations of human rights were common. But Suharto never faced any charges for crimes against humanity. He denied the charges of corruption, and partly because of claims of poor health he was not prosecuted.
By the time he stepped down, amid the social and economic chaos of 1998, many Indonesians summed up his era as KKN, a local acronym for Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism.
Transparency International reckoned his fortune as $15 billion to $35 billion and it is recorded that his wife Tien's activities were such that she was known as "Mrs Tien per cent".
Suharto's supporters - and he had plenty in the West and in Asia - pointed to the fact that he encouraged foreign investment, boosted economic growth, and raised living standards having inherited an economic shambles from former president Sukarno. And it was said he turned Indonesia into one of Asia's tigers, growing 6 to 7 per cent a year.
But many of his economic policies proved ill-conceived. He doled out licences and monopolies to his family and friends, stifling competition, and used fuel and food subsidies to win the support of the man on the street.
"The growth was enjoyed by the elite, and the benefits were not distributed among the poor," says Wimar Witoelar, a media commentator. "You cannot separate his political and economic legacy." Corruption permeated all levels of society, including the courts and legal system, and became a way of life for many.
Indonesia has had only limited success in tackling endemic graft, still cited as an obstacle to investment.
In Jakarta, sleek skyscrapers towered above slums and open sewers, and millions lived on less than $3 a day, although in the countryside many farmers still remember his rule fondly as a time when they prospered.
When he resigned, the financial system was exposed as a mess. Banks had violated the most basic lending rules, steering huge loans to his cronies, who wouldn't or couldn't pay up. Given Indonesia's oil, coal, copper and other resources, its growth fell far short of its potential, critics say. Subsequent governments have pushed through economic reforms, but Indonesia has taken years to recover.
The oligarchs including family and associates who prospered under Suharto once again rank among the country's rich. Some escaped punishment, thanks to corrupt courts, but with Suharto's death that may change.
Suharto employed his security forces and political machine Golkar to hold together a vast archipelago of assorted religions, languages, and cultures, while squashing opposition.
He continued to use communism as a convenient bogeyman and his authoritarian style prevented democratic development.
The country quickly embraced democracy in Suharto's wake, holding its first direct elections for president in 2004. His legacy however remains.
- Arnold Pickmere, Reuters
