A Bit of Soeharto’s Legacy in Bali

Published 3 months, 1 week ago in People & Community by Rina-Editor | 189 Views

Soeharto An important person had died. Some Indonesian and several foreigners who knew well this man admire him while others hate him much. This controversial general left many unsettled problems to solve.

Actually, Balinese are not really concern about problems around Soeharto. They are very upset because Soehartos’ son, Tomy in 1995 grabbed an area at south Kuta (Pecatu) by force and harmed many farmers. Tomy wanted to build a resort but the land owner opposed this project since the substitution for that land given to those farmers were only given 5 millions rupiah, and basic housing on 200m2-land.

Until now, they keep on fighting for justice. However, several of them gave up because they for higher compensation. Their legal counselor is confused to settle this problem because farmers, one by one become inconsistent on what they agreed before.

There are so many problems that give Soeharto a bad impression. Moreover, the foreign media only wrote about bad side of Soeharto. They forgot that Soeharto also had the other side. For example, in 1979, Soeharto had opened Pesta Kesenian Bali (PKB-Balinese art exhibition which invite others countries to join it) officially. This was an important thing since Bali Art festival is the hallmark of Balinese art. Soeharto and the others Indonesian Presidents after him never forget to attend PKB every year. Yes, Soeharto is remembered in this context since he was the President who opened and attended first PKB, then set a convention which is followed by the latter presidents; until now the Indonesian President always comes to open Bali Art Festival. Everybody has two sides including Soeharto. The most important thing is everybody must appreciate the facts objectively. Do you agree?

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 6:00 pm and is filed under People & Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: bali arts festival, death, farmer, justice, land, pecatu, people & community, soeharto.