Corruption Trial Begins Without Suharto

Former President Suharto, defying efforts to hold him accountable for the widespread graft that marked his 32-year rule, failed to appear in court Thursday for the first day of his trial on corruption charges.

Suharto is accused of stealing at least $571 million while he was Indonesia’s leader, but 23 doctors employed by his defense team said he is losing his memory and is too ill to stand the rigors of a court appearance.

The former president is “only able to understand and express an opinion about simple things, while to express thoughts in long or complex sentences he needs help to choose the exact words,” defense lawyer Mohammed Assegaf told the court. “Moreover, it cannot be guaranteed he says what he wishes to say.”

Many Indonesians suspect that the 79-year-old former dictator’s claim of poor health is a subterfuge to avoid trial. Prosecutors contend that he is well enough to appear and called for an independent team of doctors to examine him.

Although there is little chance that Suharto will ever spend a day in prison, the trial has great symbolic importance as this beleaguered country attempts to break with the past and build democracy.

For Indonesia, the Suharto case is much like that of Augusto Pinochet, the aging former military dictator of Chile who evaded Spanish efforts to prosecute him for alleged human rights abuses.

“We have been waiting for many years to end the impunity of those in power,” said Asmara Nababan, general secretary of Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights. “They had no risk at all if they committed crimes, even crimes against humanity. That’s why this trial is important.”

Even so, the case against Suharto is itself a compromise. The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid chose to prosecute the former leader on corruption charges, Nababan noted, not the more serious allegations of crimes against humanity that occurred during the Suharto regime.

After his rise to power in 1965, Suharto launched a campaign against leftists that took about 500,000 lives. He was forced to resign in May 1998 after Indonesia’s economy collapsed and violent protests rocked the country. Wahid, a victim of strokes who is legally blind, took office last year in the country’s first free presidential election in decades.

In bringing charges against Suharto, Wahid’s apparent goal is to yield to popular demand that the former autocrat be held accountable for alleged crimes and yet not risk destabilizing the country by delving into government-sanctioned killings that took place as recently as the 1990s.

Wahid has promised to grant a pardon if Suharto is convicted of corruption charges--provided that the former president returns money he allegedly stole from the government.

Suharto is widely believed to have diverted billions of dollars from the state treasury to family members and friends who controlled the economy during his rule.

The complaint filed by prosecutors alleges that Suharto stole at least $571 million in government funds from seven charitable trusts he controlled and gave the money to the businesses of his friends and children. The defense denies any wrongdoing.

For all the severity of the allegations, the question of corruption was hardly mentioned during Thursday’s hourlong hearing, which was devoted almost entirely to the matter of Suharto’s health.

The defense team told the five-judge panel that the 23 doctors examined the accused at 6 a.m. Thursday before the scheduled hearing and concluded that he suffers from 13 ailments.

Since July 1999, Suharto has suffered three strokes--one more than previously reported--and is at “impending” risk of another, the defense team said. The strokes have left him mentally debilitated with a deteriorating memory and the inability to express himself clearly, according to the doctors. He is also suffering from arrhythmia, high blood pressure, hypertension, diabetes, and kidney and colon problems, they said.

After hearing the report, Chief Judge Lalu Mariyun ordered the defense medical team and eight doctors working for the prosecution to appear in court Sept. 14 and discuss Suharto’s condition in “language that is understood by the people.”

The prosecution’s doctors examined Suharto in early June and concluded that he was fit to stand trial. Mariyun said he will consider the prosecution request for an independent team of doctors to examine the former leader.

The trial was held in a large meeting room at the Department of Agriculture to accommodate the hundreds of journalists and spectators seeking to attend.

As about 1,200 police provided security, a crowd of students gathered outside the building in pouring rain and chanted, “Hang Suharto!”