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JAKARTA: Indonesian activists are rallying against a government proposal to name as national hero the late military ruler Suharto who led the country for over three decades.

Suharto’s New Order military dictatorship was considered one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century. The former president, who died in 2008, held power for 32 years before student-led protests forced him to step down in 1998, amid an economic crisis and deadly riots in Jakarta.

He was included in a list of 49 candidates to receive the national hero title this year, an honor bestowed annually on National Heroes’ Day on Nov. 10 for those considered to have made a significant contribution to the country.

The plan, which has yet to be finalized, has sparked protests among members of Indonesia’s civil society, who pointed to widespread allegations of human rights abuses and corruption during Suharto’s regime.

“In his 32-year reign, Suharto committed many human rights violations. He also came to power through a coup … corruption, collusion, and nepotism were also widespread during his rule,” Damairia Pakpahan, an Indonesian women’s rights activist based in Yogyakarta, told Arab News.

Pakpahan was part of a coalition of hundreds of Indonesian citizens and organizations, who signed a letter demanding the government to remove Suharto from the list of national hero candidates. A similar petition published online has received over 13,500 signatures so far.

Suharto “did not deserve to be granted a National Hero title,” the coalition said in the letter issued on Oct. 30, before detailing at least nine cases of gross human rights violations that took place under his rule.

This includes the unsolved violence during the riots in May 1998 as well as the 1965-66 killings, a series of countrywide political purges targeting members and alleged sympathizers of Partai Komunis Indonesia — at the time the third-largest communist party after China and the Soviet Union.

While an accurate and verified count of the dead is unlikely ever to be known, historians say that a total of 500,000 to 1 million people had been killed. Another 1.5 million had been imprisoned, while their family members still face stigma and discrimination, and many were prevented from holding government jobs up until recently.

“(The) Suharto government’s track record, particularly during the New Order era, demonstrates a pattern of authoritarian and repressive rule that had a far-reaching impact on the lives of the Indonesian people,” the civil society coalition said.

“Numerous policies and security operations implemented under Suharto’s rule resulted in serious human rights violations, ranging from murder and enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, to land grabbing and systematic social discrimination.”

On Thursday, about 100 activists rallied near the presidential palace in Jakarta to protest Suharto’s candidacy for the national hero title. Some carried posters that read: “Stop the Whitewashing of the General of Butchery” and “Thousands Died But The Country Chose to Forget.”

Indonesia’s social and culture ministries have said that public input was part of the process to nominate national hero candidates. 

Culture Minister Fadli Zon, who heads the committee in charge of naming national heroes, said at a press conference that “there was never evidence” that Suharto was involved in the 1960s massacres, which scholars have said amounted to genocide due to its scale. 

“Every one of these candidates have fulfilled all the requirements … their struggles are clear, their background and life history, all of it has undergone academic evaluation … This includes (former) President Suharto, whose name has been suggested two, three times now … We are looking at their extraordinary contributions (to the country),” he told reporters earlier this week.

Andreas Harsono, senior Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Arab News that the process to grant national hero status has always been controversial in Indonesia.

“Gen. Suharto, for instance, is a hero to some groups in Indonesia, but obviously, not a hero to many other groups, especially those who have suffered from his authoritarian regime, including the 1965 genocide,” he told Arab News.

“It’s much better if (the Indonesian government) is to end these jokes about national heroes. Let historians do their work and let the public decide their own respective heroes.”