The decision announced today by the Indonesian government that Suharto, the former dictator, will go on trial later this month on charges of corruption is a totally inadequate response to the horrendous crimes for which he was responsible.

During his nearly 33 years in power, he was responsible for killings on a scale with few parallels in the blood-stained twentieth century. Within weeks of his seizure of power in October 1965, the Indonesian armed forces under his command launched a campaign of slaughter which left up to a million people dead by early 1966. Western governments knew very well what was happening but turned their eyes away, ready to welcome the installation of a military regime that would open up the country to unbridled foreign exploitation.

Suharto was never called to account for these massacres which occurred as part of a systematic campaign to destroy political opposition and pave the way for the creation of a repressive apparatus that held the entire population at its mercy for more than three decades.

Suharto should also face charges for war crimes which were perpetrated by his armed forces in East Timor. The invasion of East Timor in December 1975 was an act of aggression that resulted in the deaths of at least 200,000 people, a third of the population.

Carmel Budiardjo, director of TAPOL, said: "The corruption charges against Suharto do not measure up to the need to indict and punish Suharto for presiding over a systematic campaign of killings and repression which was the hallmark of the Suharto era. My recent visit to Indonesia convinced me that people want to see Suharto in the dock and behind bars for the crimes against humanity perpetrated during his regime of terror."

The massacres of 1965/66 paved the way for numerous other slaughters, the most notorious of which were the shooting to death of hundreds of Muslims taking part in a protest demonstration in September 1984, the killing of thousands of alleged criminals on city streets in 1985 which Suharto has since acknowledged took place on his orders, numerous killings in West Papua after the territory was annexed by Indonesia in 1963, and the murderous military operations in Aceh, North Sumatra which lasted throughout the 1990s and led to at least five thousand deaths.

TAPOL calls upon the Indonesian government to initiate investigations into the crimes against humanity for which Suharto must be held responsible. Only then will it prove that it takes seriously the need for Suharto to be called to account for the untold damage he inflicted on the people of Indonesia and East Timor.

The international community too should recognised that Suharto blood-stained rule places him the same category as other notorious killers twentieth century like Pinochet and Pol Pot.