Prabowo Subiantowas inaugurated Sunday as the eighth president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, completing his journey from an ex-general accused of rights abuses during the dark days of Indonesia’s military dictatorship to the presidential palace.
The former defense minister, who turned 73 on Thursday, was cheered through the streets by thousands of waving supporters after taking his oath on the Quran in front of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries. Banners and billboards filled the streets of the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands gathered for festivities.
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Subianto was a special forces commander until he was expelled by the army in 1998 over accusations that he played a role in the kidnappings and torture of activists and other abuses. He never faced trial and went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998, although several of his underlings were tried and convicted.
Well, this is clearly objectively terrible news for the people of Indonesia. However, at least they figured out how stupid neckties are. We should take a lesson in the West. On the necktie thing only, definitely not anything else. (U.S. is already pretty good at
kidnappingsextra-judicial renderings, and torture. We won’t be needing any lessons on those.The US is actually the one that trained, armed, and supported their previous military dictatorship, including Prabowo.
Here’s one example, but there’s no shortage of other crimes against humanity during this period, most sponsored by the US, either directly, or indirectly, depending on the incident.
That tracks