INDONESIA:The beginning of the end for President Suharto came late on Tuesday afternoon, May 12th, 1998, when soldiers opened fire on a student demonstration at Trisakti University in Jakarta, killing four students.
For months the call for reformasi (reform) had gathered momentum throughout the country of some 200 million people, but up to then demonstrations had ended peacefully.
I found Trisakti in a state of open revolt. Next day the matronly Megawati Sukarnoputrai, daughter of the former president, Sukarno, was given a tumultuous welcome by students and professors. As she spoke rioters set fire to vehicles in the street outside. But it was only a warm-up for the day of madness.
On Thursday May 14th, protests against Suharto's 32-year reign became a popular uprising against his corrupt, repressive and family-dominated administration. Indonesia had been crippled by an economic crisis sweeping the Asia Pacific region. Its currency, the rupiah, had plummeted, banks had collapsed. On May 1st the government had raised prices of cooking oil and fuel to meet conditions set by the International Monetary Fund. This alone had made an explosion inevitable.
Jakarta was buzzing with rumours that Gen Prabowo,Suharto's son-in-law and head of the feared special forces unit, Korpassus, would engineer chaos to weaken the forces of democracy, justify a crackdown, and gain the upper hand in a political power struggle with Gen Wiranto, head of the Indonesian armed forces.
The chaos began the following day outside the University of Indonesia medical campus. Crowds filled the streets casually pulling down lamp posts, railings and road dividers, then burning and looting stores and car showrooms. The anarchy spread out in every direction. Officials from the world financial institutions which had inadvertently helped ignite the fury fled for the airport.
On the following Monday, May 18th, Suharto's survival became impossible when Gen Wiranto allowed students to occupy the Indonesian parliament to demand that he resign. Several prominent Indonesians gathered at the parliament to support the students, including 15 retired generals.
Gen Prabowo's soldiers arrived and confronted the students. Then retired general Ibrahim Sali came hurrying from the parliament building, climbed on a tank, and announced that the speaker of parliament, Harmoko, had called for Suharto to step down.
Gen Wiranto called on Suharto in his bungalow in Jalan Cendana to tell him he no longer had the support of the army. The 76-year-old president announced his resignation in a radio broadcast at 3.00pm the next day, May 21st.
Conor O'Clery was a former Irish Times Asia Correspondent