Singapore – Former Indonesian president Suharto's children ignored advice to not abuse their position for financial and business gain, according to excerpts of Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs published Sunday.
The children's behaviour in the end contributed to their father's downfall, he said. Singapore's elder statesman however said that compared to the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, he would not classify Suharto as a crook.
Lee revealed he met two Suharto daughters at the height of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998 to drive home the gravity Indonesia's problems highlighted by the tailspin of the rupiah currency. "Alarmed at the rapid decline of the value of the rupiah, I told our ambassador to Jakarta to ask Tutut if she could meet me in Singapore to convey my views to her father," he said in the excerpts published in the Sunday Times.
The meeting with Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana (Tutut) took place on Christmas day in 1997 with the presence of Singapore Prime Miniser Goh Chok Tong. "I strongly urged her and her siblings to understand that international fund managers in Jakarta had focused on the economic privileges the president's children were enjoying," Lee said. "During this period of crisis, it was best if they withdrew completely from the market and did not engage in any new projects."
Lee said he asked Tutut "point blank" whether she could get the message understood by her siblings. "She answered with equal frankness that she could not," said Lee, whose second volume of memoirs titled "From Third World to First: The Singapore Story" is to be launched here on Friday. The book is a sequel to the controversial first volume published earlier.
Lee said he persisted, sending Tutut the daily market reports on Indonesia from Singapore-based analysts. "To judge from the actions of the Suharto children, it had no effect on them."
Lee said he met another Suharto daughter, Siti Hediati Prabowo, in January 1998, who he said came to Singapore with her father's knowledge to raise US dollar bonds.
In the end, Lee said, Suharto's problems, which included a failing health, "had been compounded by the increasing intrusion of his children into all lucrative contracts and monopolies." Lee however explained the context in which the former Indonesian strongman indulged his children.
He said Suharto saw himself as a "mega sultan of a mega country" and as such believed that his children were entitled to such privileges as those accorded to the royalty of Solo in Central Java where his wife is a minor princess.