In 1975, President Gerald Ford and Kissinger approved Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor, leading to a disastrous 24-year occupation by a U.S.-backed military
In 2025, Subianto awards Suharto ( the butcher ) national hero of Indonesia. WBT posts this critical message about this message. Ian Curr Editor 12 November 2025.
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The government officially awarded the title of national hero to the 2nd President of the Republic of Indonesia, Soeharto. The decision sparked a wave of rejection from a number of circles, especially human rights activists and survivors of political violence from 1965-1966. Among the opposing voices, there is Arif Harsana, an Indonesian exile who now resides in Germany. The decision of President Prabowo Subianto's government, said Arif, is not just a state award, but also a form of betrayal of the nation's collective memory of the dark history that claimed millions of victims. "Since the emergence of the discourse of giving the title of national hero to the great butcher general and the great corruptor of Soeharto, I can't stop thinking," said Arif to detikX. "How can a great criminal against humanity be nominated as a hero?" He continued. Arif considers that the title of hero should be given to those who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the people. In his view, Soeharto actually bequeathed a long wound to this nation. "Suharto's track record actually contradicts those values," he said. He recalled a historically often forgotten record: a mass murder without legal process in 1965-1966, which killed 1-3 million people. According to Arif, Soeharto was the central figure behind the bloody military operation. He referred to the research of a researcher from Australia, Jess Melvin, who found thousands of military documents in the Aceh Archive Building in 2010. Those documents, said Arif, have been verified through interviews with various parties and compared with literature related to the G30S incident. The results were then published in the Indonesian Genocide File book in 2015. He said the mass murder did not stop in 1965. The arrest and execution of political prisoners continued until the following years. The term tapol, according to Arif, becomes a symbol of how the state officially recognises the practice of political detention without shame. "The term tapol or political prisoner is a term officially used without shame by the Soeharto regime, showing the anti-democratic authoritarian character of the Orba/Soeharto terror regime," he said.