Indonesia Watches An Ailing Suharto

SOLO, Indonesia — The tomb is ready, in a mausoleum at the peak of a small mountain here in central Java, surrounded by shimmering green rice terraces, not far from a sacred retreat where former President Suharto had often come to meditate.

Over the past 11 days in a Jakarta hospital, Mr. Suharto’s heart, lungs and kidneys have been failing him and the nation he once dominated has been transfixed by his struggle to stay alive.

Doctors have issued a stream of reports — “deteriorating,” “very critical,” “alarming” — and his family has hurried repeatedly to his bedside.

On Friday, doctors said he had suffered organ failure and placed him on a ventilator. On Saturday, he rallied briefly.

On Sunday, the doctors said the family had given them permission to cease taking extraordinary measures. On Monday morning, he seemed to be rallying again.

Fading in and out of consciousness, Mr. Suharto, 86, has clung to life more tenaciously than he clung to power in May 1998 when, after an economic collapse and widespread rioting, his military aides and cabinet ministers told him it was time to go.

He retreated without ado to his home in downtown Jakarta and soon the crowds chanting “Hang Suharto” were gone. The nation moved on to a democratic election and only fitful attempts were made to bring him to account for the corruption and human rights abuses of his 32-year rule.

The medical accounts have been detailed and lurid, tracking his blood pressure, his breathing, and the traces of blood in his stool and urine, and a throng of shouting reporters has besieged visitors and doctors as they enter and leave the hospital.

“I asked him if he was feeling pain and he nodded,” one doctor said. He administered a sedative and Mr. Suharto fell back asleep.

In newspapers and the public statements of officials there seemed to be a mood of forgiveness, or at least of decorum as this frail, elderly man suffered through his final days.

“The achievements and works that he carried out were not small things, especially like national development, even though as a human being, and like other leaders, Pak Harto had some deficiencies and made some mistakes,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Saturday, referring to Mr. Suharto by a common name of affection.

“This will not stop us from thanking him for his contribution and achievements, and service to our nation,” he said, after cutting short a trip to Malaysia to visit the former president’s bedside.

Mr. Suharto’s former political party called on the government to drop all cases against him, and some other public figures said the country should leave the past alone and look to the future.

On Sunday, an old friend, Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, flew to Jakarta to visit his bedside. On Monday, another member of the old guard, former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia, paid a visit.

Mr. Suharto was asleep or unconscious when Mr. Lee arrived, but his visitor approached his bedside and touched him, said former State Secretary Murdiono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name and is a confidant of Mr. Suharto. In his autobiography, Mr. Lee described Mr. Suharto as “a quiet man, courteous and punctilious on form and protocol.” He added: “He is not an intellectual, but he has the ability to select able economists and administrators who are his administrators.”

After his visit, Mr. Lee told reporters Mr. Suharto’s legacy was not being honored as it should be.

“Yes, he gave favors to his family and his friends, but there was real growth, real progress,” Mr. Lee said, seeming to forgive what he has refused to tolerate among his own ministers. “He educated the population. He built roads and infrastructure.”

Mr. Lee noted that Mr. Suharto seized power in a coup in 1965 just a few years after Ne Win had seized power similarly in Burma, which is now called Myanmar.

“Compare,” Mr. Lee said. “Who’s better off? Who deserves to be honored? What’s a few billion dollars lost in bad excesses? He built hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets.”

Here in the city of Solo and in the surrounding countryside, it was this growth that people said they remembered, not the corruption or the repressive rule, not the economic crash that marked the end of his tenure or the massacres that marked the beginning, when at least 500,000 people were killed.

“I liked it better in Suharto’s time,” said Darno, 27, a metal worker. “Jobs were easy to find. Prices were low. People were living in good conditions. After he left, everything was messed up.”

The democratic openness and freedoms of the post-Suharto years have also included the removal of subsidies for basic commodities, and many people have struggled with rising prices.

As Mr. Suharto’s health deteriorated over the years and his mind was weakened by a series of strokes, his lawyers successfully fended off criminal corruption cases by saying he was too sick to face trial.

As he lay in the hospital, conflicting reports emerged that the government and Mr. Suharto’s six wealthy children were discussing an out-of-court settlement of the only active case against him.

Attorney General Hendarman Supanji said he had been ordered by Mr. Yudhoyono to offer to settle a civil corruption case seeking $1.4 billion for money said to have been stolen through a charitable foundation.

One of Mr. Suharto’s lawyers, Mohammad Assegaf, said he found the offer distasteful, remarking, “How can the family negotiate when they are concentrating on their fathers health?”

Mr. Yudhoyono then denied that he had ordered a settlement offer and said this was not the time to talk about it.

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