Sir, - Your headline "King of Java deposed by his people" (May 22nd) seriously misjudges the balance of power not only in Indonesia but in many other parts of the world. The main lesson from Indonesia's turmoil should be the decisive role played by the United States and the International Monetary Fund. If any party should take credit for decisively bringing down Suharto it is these enforcers of the global capitalist order - not people power as you imply. After 30-odd years of milking the rich resources of Indonesia, it became clear last autumn when Indonesia caught the Asian financial flu, that Suharto was no longer expedient for Western powers. Unlike the other lame Asian Tigers, Suharto proved to be insufficiently nimble in administering the usual IMF neoliberal shock treatment for so-called recovery.
As Michel Chossudovsky has documented in The Globalisation of Poverty (Zed Books), the objective of the IMF is to lever open national economies to satisfy the needs of international finance capital. The principal crowbar used by the IMF in achieving this is debt collection. The process works like this: after indulging a country with investment, cultivating budgetary chaos and escalating its debt, the IMF can then call in the receivers to take charge of the country's economy. It is a welltried device - as seen in Mexico, the former Soviet Union, Brazil, many African countries and now Indonesia. The upshot of this neo-colonialism allows for greater control of a country's resources by foreign capital and it invariably leaves the mass of people even more destitute, as wealth is siphoned off at ever greater speed to stock exchanges in New York and London.
Already the signs in Indonesia are ominous. Suharto's successor is no more committed to democracy and social justice, the country's military machine continues to operate with brutal efficiency, and, note this, the IMF is redoubling its calls for "market reforms" and cuts in public spending.
Unfortunately, this is not a case of "King deposed by the people". It is more a case of "Henchman called off by the Mob" - the Mob being the Western financial elite - who can get on with beating up the Indonesian people with another instrument. - Yours, etc., Finian Cunningham,
Rostrevor, Co Down.