Dear Mrs. Madeleine Korbel Albright,
Indonesia sends a message that the old form of rule-general turned politician and using
the military is outdated and is bound to fail. Key dates in the life of Indonesia's
President Suharto;
A. Jane 8, 1921; Suharto born into a poor, farming family on Java, Indonesia's main
island.
B. 1940; Stars military training under Dutch colonial administration.
C. 1945; Joins revolutionaries under nationalist leader Suharto who declares an
independent Indonesian republic and becomes President.
D. 1949; Dutch withdraw, ending four centuries of colonial rule.
E. 1965; Gen. Suharto routs communist forces who killed six senior generals in an
alleged coup attempt. Estimated 500,000 people killed in backlash against communists,
chaos spills across the country. Many Indonesia's-Chinese was dead.
F. 1966; Sukarno, politically crippled, essentially cedes power to Suharto, who has the
military's backing.
G. 1967; Sukarno placed under house arrest, Suharto becomes acting President.
H. 1968; Suharto appointed President.
I. 1975; Suharto orders the invasion of former Portuguese colony of East Timor.
Pro-independence rebels still fight Indonesian forces.
J. 1980s; Suharto modernized Indonesia's economy, resulting in fast growth rates and
Industrialization.
K. 1996; Riots erupt with when police storm the Jakarta headquarters of a minority
party headed by opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno's eldest daughter.
L. December 1997; Doctors order Suharto to rest after lengthy overseas trip,
financial markets already battered by South East Asia financial crisis. Plummet
amid rumors he is seriously ill or dead. He recovers.
M. March 1998; Suharto appointed to seventh five-year term.
N. April; University students whose job prospects are dashed by the economic crisis
hold near-daily protests demanding Suharto's resignation.
O. May 12; Security forces fire into a peaceful protest at Jakarta's Trisakti
University, killing six students and beginning a week of rioting that leaves more than 500
people dead.
P. May 18; Suharto loses supports of top parliament allies, but keeps the all-important
backing of Indonesia's powerful military, student sit-in begins at parliament complex.
Q. May 19; Suharto announces he will hold new elections and not run for President.
R. May 21; Suharto resigns.
Over the Indonesia's financial and political crisis; the forces of democracy work with
globalization.
Hopefully; United States; a strongest democratic country of whole world must carefully
to make deal with communist China.
House speaker Newt Gingrich called on Clinton to delay his trip to mainland China and
proposed that a special bipartisan committee he created to assess whether U.S. policy was
affected by communist Chinese efforts, according to his spokeswoman Christina Martin.
Under the heading of "U.S. security for sale", William Safire, a New York
Time columnist wrote that: " Clinton had overruled the Pentagon and sold to a Chinese
Military intelligence front the technology that defense experts argued would
give Beijing the capacity to blind our spy satellites and launch a sneak attack".
Whether above description is right or wrong, that's value for United States to protect
"security" of U.S.'s people.