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JAKARTA: Indonesia has declared the late President Suharto a national hero which activists say is an attempt at whitewashing a long history of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his three-decade military rule.

Suharto was forced out of office in 1998 by violent protests that took place amid an economic crisis.

His departure marked the end of the New Order regime, which was characterized by rapid economic growth, kleptocracy and rights violations, including the anti-communist purges in the 1960s, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Subianto was one of 10 people awarded the national hero title by President Prabowo Subianto on Monday, in the annual observance of National Heroes’ Day, to honor those who have made significant contributions to the country.

“Indonesia’s second president is known as the Father of Development because of his Repelita (Five-Year Development Plan) program that helped Indonesia to achieve significant development,” the Cabinet Secretariat said in a statement.

Former President Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia’s first democratically elected leader who revoked many of Suharto’s repressive laws, and Marsinah, a prominent labor activist who was killed during Suharto’s dictatorship, were also among those who received the national hero title this year.

Suharto, who died in 2008 and was Prabowo’s father-in-law, had been proposed twice to receive the national hero title under previous presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo, but was never approved.

His 2025 nomination had earlier sparked protests among many Indonesian activists, who demanded that the government remove Suharto from the list of candidates.

Many highlighted his alleged involvement in the killings of 1965-1966, a series of countrywide political purges targeting members of the Communist Party of Indonesia and its alleged sympathizers. Between 500,000 and 1 million people were killed at the time.

The current government’s decision to make Suharto a national hero drew sharp and swift criticism from human rights activists.

“For more than three decades, Suharto’s regime was responsible for various crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations … Millions of victims and their families have yet to receive the truth, justice or even reparations until now,” Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, told Arab News on Tuesday.

“The act of awarding this national hero title cannot be separated from the systematic effort to rewrite Indonesian history by removing state violence … It’s a blatant perversion of history and whitewashing of historic crime.”

Under Suharto’s military rule, the government tolerated no criticism and crushed opposition, while his family was accused of enriching themselves with billions of dollars through kickbacks.

“The whole point of the national hero award is to create role models,” said constitutional law expert Bivitri Susanti. “Suharto was known for committing human rights abuses and corruption.”

The move also poses a threat to Indonesia’s reform movement — also known as reformasi — which was the basis of the country’s path to democracy after Suharto fell from power, Susanti told Arab News. 

“I think what we need to be concerned about is how this charts a path to reverse everything back to how it was before reformasi,” she said. “It’s a complete setback.”