Reason Suharto was in power for so long was that US interests supported him when he survived the communist assasination plot (night of the generals approx 1965) when the Indonesian communist part attemted a coup with the blessing of the then infamous president Surkano. They tried to kill all the leading generals but only half succeeded.

The next 2 years saw approx 600,000 communists rounded up & executed (I previously said 2 million but must have been suffering from effects of too much coffee (Java) because I was mixing the #s up with Cambodia). These people who were killed in Indonesia at that time were mostly Chinese & included lots of innocents that some local non-communist official had a grudge against.

I was in Air Force during this period & we had U2s stationed at the airbase I was on in Australia, belonging to the '57th Weather Recon Sqn' (yup great name). These U2s were used for spying mostly on Indonesia leading up to the 1965 coup.

In the 1970s US provided aid to Indonesia (weapons, training & a green light) for Indonesia to invade East Timor. In 1990s when overthrowing despotic greedy dictators became a western fashion, US encouraged Suharto minions to begin a program of destabilisation as a means to prevent Islamic groups from asserting control over the country. Aceh province was the home to one Islamic movement.

Mahatir is still supported as a bulwark against Islamic militancy & it is quite probable that Mahatir's attempt to destroy his former deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim, and that this attempt was really becasue this guy was so charismatic and was also pro Islamic. At the time I though Mahatir was being a bastard, but history may show he was attempting (with outside encouragement) to prevent Ibrahim from taking Malaysia down the path to an Islamic theocracy. I have no idea if Bin Ibrahim had any contacts with Bin Laden but it is possible ?.

The recent East Timor incident was a further attempt to fragment Indonesia as a fragmented country is less dangerous to Islamic take over that a united one. The Islamic militants in Indonesia are certainly nasty bits of work.

Cheers

Doug Marker