JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Former President Suharto, an army general who rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and ruled for 32 years over an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died Sunday in Indonesia. He was 86.
Like many Javanese, Suharto went by only one name. He had been in poor health for years after suffering several strokes and other ailments. He was rushed to the hospital Jan. 4 with anemia, low blood pressure and other ailments.
Suharto's unyielding opposition to communism won him the backing of the United States during the height of the Cold War, although he was one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers of that era. He governed the world's fourth-most-populous nation with a combination of paternalism and ruthlessness from 1965 until he was ousted in the spring of 1998.
Pallbearers, dressed in combat fatigues and representing each of Indonesia's armed forces, carried Suharto's flag-draped coffin after a ceremony Monday morning at Cendana Palace, where he lived as president and in retirement.
Female relatives sprinkled the ground with flower petals after Suharto's coffin was loaded into a white Mercedes-Benz van.
"We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them . . . may he be absolved of all his mistakes," Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, told reporters earlier.
Her father's coffin was flown by transport plane to Central Java, where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presided over a state funeral and burial at the Suharto family cemetery near Solo. He was laid to rest next to his wife.
Hailing the former dictator as "one of the nation's best citizens," Yudhoyono declared a week of national mourning.
Hundreds of Indonesians converged on Suharto's mansion in south Jakarta, and their mixed reactions to his death reflected the complex legacy of a man revered by many as the "Father of Development" and despised by many others as a mass murderer.
Siti Rahayu, a 27-year-old housemaid, said she was sad because Suharto had suffered for weeks, and she missed his regime because things were better for the poor then.
"Although he's responsible for all the corruption, collusion and nepotism, it was for the people. We had a lot of debt because he wanted to build our country," she said.
Rudiyanto, 43, a wildlife researcher, said Suharto was still synonymous with president in his mind.
