Brief History of Indonesia

u and gue, which come from the Chinese Hokkien dialec

r all the high drama that had surrounded the fall of Suharto, there had never really been a clean break with the New Order.

Even before the tsunami, Aceh had been given a special degree of autonomy in an effort to appease the separatists

But nowhere was hit as badly as Aceh.

ay, the government cut subsidies on fuel—in line with the demands of the IM

Panicky middle-class families descended on the supermarkets to stock up on groceries as their savings vanished before their very eyes. By the end of the month the rupiah was worth 17,000 to the US dollar.

July the rupiah had been worth 2,400 to the dollar; by October the cost of buying a single US dollar was heading towards 4,000 rupiah and Suharto had to call in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout of US$43 billion

Amongst them were Sudono Salim (real name Liem Sioe Liong), head of the vast Salim Group conglomerate, and Bob Hasan (originally known as The Kian Seng), chief of the sprawling Nusamba Group,

private, out of print and out of earshot of the authorities, there was another word beside ‘development’ associated with Suharto’s regime, and that word was ‘corruption’

ed Golkar. The name was short for Sekretariat Bersama Golongan Karya,