He was a US-backed dictator who led sweeping massacres. Why is he now being named a national hero?

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — For decades, he was a feared US-backed dictator whose regime oversaw bloody Cold War-era massacres, accused of diverting huge amounts of state money to propel his family into luxury and political power.

On Monday, he was posthumously named a national hero of Indonesia – prompting protests from human rights groups and victims who decried the award as whitewashing a repressive regime that left hundreds of thousands dead, according to historians.

Former President Suharto was granted the title in a ceremony by Indonesia’s current leader, Prabowo Subianto – Suharto’s former son-in-law, himself a divisive figure as a former general who faced his own allegations of human rights abuses while in uniform.

“A prominent figure from Central Java province, a hero of the struggle for independence, General Suharto stood out since the independence era,” an announcer said during the award presentation, according to Reuters.

But as the roiling controversy shows, that characterization is hotly debated – and Suharto’s legacy is anything but straightforward.

Who was Suharto?

Born in 1921 when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony, Suharto rose to power after the country gained independence in 1949, climbing the army ranks to become a five-star general.

Then came a bloodbath in 1965, sparked by a failed coup and the murder of a number of generals in the military.

Suharto blamed the coup on communists, ousted then-President Sukarno – the country’s first post-independence leader – and sanctioned a hunt for those responsible.

What ensued was a nationwide purge of alleged communists overseen by Suharto’s powerful military, with human rights groups and historians estimating that between 500,000 to one million people were killed.

The United States supported the anti-communist massacres, providing lists of senior communist party officials, equipment and money to the Indonesian army, according to official documents that were declassified in 2017.

In one document in late 1965, the US embassy in Jakarta sent a cable to Washington calling the crackdowns a “fantastic switch which has occurred over 10 short weeks,” along with an estimate that 100,000 people had been slaughtered, according to the Associated Press.

Many contend that those targeted during the purges were not communists but ethnic Chinese, or anyone with left wing views.

In 2016, an international tribunal at the Hague found that the US, United Kingdom, and Australia were all complicit in the mass killings of 1965, which were deemed crimes against humanity.

Suharto stayed in power for 31 years, during which he cracked down on critics and political opponents, and enforced his regime’s rule over territories including East Timor, Aceh, West Papua and the Maluku islands.

Some of those territories were invaded with the tacit support of Western allies keen to prop up an anti-communist leader, at a time when proxy conflicts backed by the US and the Soviet Union raged across the Global South.

He is praised by some for policies that fueled rapid economic growth and relative political stability. But at the same time, he siphoned off huge sums of money from state coffers, funding his family’s rich lifestyle and fueling public resentment.

His rule finally came to an end in 1998 after the Asian financial crisis threw the country into economic turmoil, prompting widespread protests and forcing Suharto to resign – one of the last people power movements to sweep Southeast Asia and replace a Cold War-era autocrat with democracy.

In the following years, Suharto’s children were prosecuted, and his youngest was convicted of corruption. In 2015, the Supreme Court ordered Suharto’s family to pay back millions in embezzled funds to the state.

But Suharto himself never answered to his victims. Due to health problems in his final years, he died in 2008 without ever standing trial. He denied any wrongdoing until his death, at one point calling the embezzlement allegations “slander and defamation.”

Why would Prabowo name Suharto a national hero?

It’s not lost on many that Suharto was granted the posthumous honor by Prabowo – a longtime supporter of Suharto’s regime, and once a part of the strongman’s family.

Prabowo married Suharto’s daughter in 1983, though they divorced after Suharto was forced from power.

Prabowo was also a military commander during Suharto’s reign and served in controversial campaigns in West Papua and East Timor, casting doubts over his own human rights record. He is accused of kidnapping activists during the 1998 mass protests that led to Suharto’s downfall.

Prabowo has always denied the allegations that led to his dismissal from the military in 1998, the same year Indonesia broke free from Suharto’s authoritarian rule.

Prabowo was elected president in 2024 – with Suharto’s former party, Golkar, throwing its support behind the candidate. During his victory speech, Prabowo paid tribute to Suharto and thanked his ex-wife.

At the time, some human rights experts voiced concerns that his presidency risked backsliding on the democratic gains made since Suharto’s authoritarian regime.

Since then, Prabowo has expanded the military’s role into what were considered civilian areas, measures heavily criticized by civil society groups who say it would bring Indonesia back to Suharto-era militarism and authoritarianism.

Besides Prabowo’s involvement, there are also still a number of Suharto loyalists in Indonesia. His political heirs have also tried to redeem his image in the last decade, portraying him instead as a strong leader who brought stability to the country.

In places like Kemusuk, a village near Yogyakarta where he was born, his image is everywhere – from museum memorabilia celebrating his life to the souvenir T-shirts with his smiling face.

Discussion of his rule remains largely taboo in Indonesia, with mixed opinions about his legacy.

What has been the response?

Ahead of the ceremony on Monday, activists gathered last week in Jakarta to protest against the act, holding placards that read: “Human rights violator” and “Suharto is not a hero.”

Human rights groups lambasted the choice, with Amnesty International describing it as an attempt to rewrite history and pointing out Prabowo’s familial ties to Suharto.

Andreas Harsono, the Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch, also condemned the move.

“The failure to hold (Soharto) and his abusive generals to account facilitates the whitewashing and distortion of history that is now taking place under Prabowo,” he wrote in a statement.

“This will make it even harder for Indonesian authorities now, and in the future, to end impunity for serious human rights violations and obtain justice for the victims and their families.”

The title especially stings for the many survivors of violence and persecution under Suharto’s rule – and the families of his victims.

“I was shocked, disappointed and angry with this government’s absurd decision,” Bedjo Untung told the Associated Press. Untong was imprisoned without trial for alleged Communist links between 1970-1979, during which he was tortured and his family faced hardship and discrimination.

“It feels deeply unfair, we are still living with the suffering until today,” he added.

Suharto’s defenders have taken a different view.

“We don’t need to defend it ourselves… nothing is being hidden,” Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, Suharto’s daughter, told journalists after the ceremony on Monday.

“We have expressed our gratitude to the president for appointing our father as the national hero and maybe because he is also a soldier so he knows what my father had done,” she added.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.