Jakarta – It has now been revealed that in his final days as president, Suharto ordered armed forces commander General Wiranto to finish off the reform leader, Amien Rais, along with thousands of students who had planned to march to the presidential palace to call for his resignation. This was revealed by a member of his personal staff, Prof Dr. Yusril Ihza Mahendra, speaking at a seminar in Jakarta recently.

On 20 March, the day before he resigned, Suharto ordered Wiranto to instruct the 1,500 troops guarding the streets leading to the palace to replace their rubber bullets with live ammunition. If Amien Rais and the students persisted in trying to get through, live ammunition should be used against them.

Fortunately, Amien Rais decided not to go ahead even though the students were pressing him to continue with the plans. "I know for sure that 1,500 troops were ready for action. Suharto issued an order to Wiranto to instruct the troops to replace their rubber bullets with live ammunition. If Amien Rais had persisted in the plans to march from the National Monument (in central Jakarta) to the State Palace, the troops would have opened fire. This would have been a massacre far worse than what happened in Tiananmien," he said.

Yusril, who was at the time a speech writer for Suharto, told the seminar that, under the circumstances and to prevent terrible bloodshed, he decided to take the path of persuading Suharto to resign. He said that he was the one who wrote Suharto's resignation speech.