The Blossoming of Pak Harto

Indonesia's students helped put Acting President Suharto into power, and since then have eagerly kept an eye on his government. Relations have been fairly smooth; the students have even taken to calling him "Pak Harto"--Father Harto. Last week, however, several thousand students marched on the President's office for the first time since Suharto took over, bristling with anger about the rising price of rice. Suharto, who has always been considered a shy and reticent man, went out to meet them, listened briefly to their complaints and then told them off much as he would have any of his own six children.

"I am responsible for everything," he told them. "I can assure you we are all doing our level best, but running this country is like running a big family that is short of money. Be patient. Never move just because of your passions. If you do so, I will act against you. If shouting alone would bring down the price of rice, I would join you. I would even shout ten times louder, until my voice became hoarse. But the thing we have to do is work hard." Suharto's performance won over the students, who cheered him, joined him in chanting national slogans and then peacefully dispersed.

Deft Touch at Power. The street scene was the most dramatic display yet of Suharto's blossoming as a strongwilled, articulate leader. Last month he showed a deft touch at power politics with a Cabinet reshuffle that put the feuding military directly under his control and effectively dissolved the old ruling triumvirate in which he had shared power with Foreign Minister Adam Malik and the Sultan of Jogjakarta. Now Suharto is burnishing his style as well as his tactics.

The general has doffed his bemedaled uniform for casual mufti in order to soften his military image, has abandoned droning prepared speeches for off-the-cuff talks and has even begun to enjoy the political stump. Recently, he articulately plugged Indonesia's "New Order" on a visit to the island of Sulawesi, where he wowed the natives not only by giving pithy explanations of what his government is trying to do but by donning a sarong and the peaked local headdress. Later this month, he goes off to Bali on a similar speechmaking tour.

Suharto's restrained private tastes also please his countrymen. While former President Sukarno continues to live in a palace at Bogor even in exile, Suharto lives modestly in the same suburban Djakarta cottage that he occupied when he was an obscure army officer. He plays an occasional round of golf, spends a day at the seaside or mountains and takes bicycle rides near his home, during which he sometimes scolds neighbors who do not keep their property tidy. Suharto's wife Titi (Sukarno had seven wives in all) often appears beside her husband in public, dutifully entertains diplomats' wives and has exhibited a matronly determination of her own by stripping Merdeka Palace of Sukarno's collection of nude paintings.

Proliferating Portrait. By showing a firmer hand, Suharto is gradually becoming strong enough to cope with problems as numerous as Indonesia's 3,000 islands. Corruption remains a blot on Indonesian life, but Suharto is considering a housecleaning to try to root it out. Indonesia's politicians are often restive, but he has managed to keep them in line while also blocking any resurgence of the outlawed Communist party. Though he has broken with Peking, Suharto adheres to a neutralist, if slightly pro-Western, foreign policy, showing a sympathetic understanding of American objectives in Viet Nam while still retaining diplomatic ties with North Viet Nam.*

Though inflation still plagues Indonesia, Suharto is working hard to restore the climate for foreign investment, to draft a five-year plan and to win additional aid from Indonesia's nine major non-Communist creditors, who will meet in Amsterdam next week to decide how far they will go along with Suharto. One little example of Suharto's personal impact is the recent proliferation of his portrait throughout Indonesia. About the only place Sukarno's face still shows is on the old rupiah bills that his free-spending ways helped make almost worthless.

* Suharto discussed Viet Nam with visiting Vice President Hubert Humphrey in Djakarta last week. Contrary to initial reports, he did not offer to mediate the war, nor did Humphrey ask him to do so.

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