B.J. Habibie Dies at 83; Ushered in Democracy in Indonesia
Though he served as the country’s president for only 17 months, he played a crucial role in ending a harsh 32-year dictatorship.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — B. J. Habibie, who as president of Indonesia ushered in an era of democracy that ended the brutal and corrupt rule of Suharto, whose 32-year dictatorship was one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Jakarta. He was 83.
His son Thareq Kemal Habibie said the cause was heart failure.
“Please allow me on behalf the Indonesian people, and the government, to convey our deep sorrow,” Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, said. “We know Mr. Habibie as a world-class scientist, the father of technology in Indonesia and the third president of the Republic of Indonesia.”
Mr. Habibie was working for the aerospace manufacturer Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm in Germany in 1974 when Suharto persuaded him to return to Indonesia and develop the country’s technology.
He held several posts before Suharto named him to his cabinet as minister of research and technology in 1978. Twenty years later, he appointed him vice president and his successor.
At the time, Indonesia was struggling to recover from the Asian economic crisis, and Suharto’s government was facing mounting opposition. Suharto stepped down barely two months later, and Mr. Habibie became president.
Though he was president for only 17 months, the shortest time in office of any Indonesian president, Mr. Habibie had a crucial role in laying the foundation for a democratic Indonesia.
He called the first free elections in a generation, released political prisoners, protected freedom of the press and women’s rights, reduced the role of the military in politics, and moved to decentralize the government.
He also paved the way for the province of East Timor, an island that was once a Portuguese colony, to become independent. The move was highly unpopular with Indonesians who did not want to see their country lose territory.
“It’s fair to say that Habibie proved the skeptics (like me) wrong,” Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta, said by email. “In his short tenure he managed to leave a stronger reformist legacy than any other post-Suharto president.”
Ms. Jones added, “On some issues he was swept along by popular pressure, but at heart he showed himself to be a genuine democrat.”
At the same time, Mr. Habibie was unable to break completely with Suharto, his mentor. To his own political detriment, Mr. Habibie halted an investigation into allegations that Suharto and members of his family had siphoned off vast amounts of wealth from the government.
In October 1999, days before an electoral assembly was scheduled to select a new president, Mr. Habibie withdrew his candidacy, recognizing that defeat was inevitable.
“I was satisfied by my term in office,” he told reporters at the time. “I was given the opportunity to devote myself to this nation. I’m happy that democracy has started in Indonesia, and I hope this will continue whoever the new president is.” He was succeeded by Abdurrahman Wahid.
In rolling back the Suharto dictatorship, Mr. Habibie freed the East Timor independence leader, Xanana Gusmao, who had served seven years in prison. Mr. Gusmao became East Timor’s first president in 2002 and later its prime minister for seven years.
A video clip that circulated on the internet on Thursday showed Mr. Gusmao bidding an emotional farewell to Mr. Habibie at his hospital bedside. On Aug. 30, the 20th anniversary of the vote that granted it independence, East Timor named a bridge after Mr. Habibie in Dili, the capital.
Bacharudin Jusuf Habibie was born on June 25, 1936, on the island of Sulawesi in Eastern Indonesia. He went to Europe in 1955 to attend university and spent most of the next two decades earning a degree in engineering and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in Germany and working in the aeronautics industry there.
He returned to Indonesia for three months in 1962 and reunited with and married his high school sweetheart, Hasri Ainun Besari, who returned to Germany with him. Their 48-year marriage became the subject of two popular movies in Indonesia. She died in 2010.
Mr. Habibie advised at least two of his successors as president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Mr. Joko. He also established the Habibie Center, an independent research institute dedicated to the modernization and democratization of Indonesians.
In addition to his son, Mr. Habibie is survived by another son, Ilham Akbar Habibie, and six grandchildren.
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