Suharto

You can only fool the populace so long. Like Batista, Marcos and Pinochet before him, Indonesia’s Suharto has followed the mandate to “step down” (May 21-22). You have to wonder why it took the people so long to realize that they were betting “against the house,” literally. As usual the U.S. had placed its money and faith in the wrong corner. Money talks but corruption ate this nation from the inside. Will we ever learn?

GARY TRAXLER

Oxnard

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Well, well, poor Suharto. He has become the latest in a long line of brutal, corrupt murderers who were installed and enthusiastically supported by the U.S., only to be unceremoniously turned out when a scapegoat was needed or when he failed in his primary task of supporting U.S. power (“Suharto Fanned Flames of Dissent in Indonesia,” May 20).

The actual source of “dissent” in Indonesia right now has nothing to do with Suharto; rather, mobs turned the capital upside-down in response to “structural adjustments” imposed on the country by the U.S.-backed IMF. These adjustments, intended to enhance the profits of foreign investors, have caused the prices of food, energy and transportation to skyrocket beyond the meager means of the average Indonesian. Suharto had in fact been resisting these IMF “reforms,” though for his own corrupt reasons rather than out of any humanitarian concern for his countrymen.

MATTHEW CLARK

San Diego