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> Suharto (who was put into power by the US)

Suharto was responsible for his own rise. He took money and intel from wherever he liked and was basically an independent & ruthless strongman. Neither he nor other Indonesians need to be infantilized by lazy neocolonial narratives.

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The coup was literally armed and equipped by the US. The US provided intelligence, made the plan, did the homework. They even gave them list of targets. Wherever you wanna draw the line, no one would seriously deny that he could've gained power without the US.

The US' strategy to use a proxy to commit heinous crimes against humanity is named after this event. It's called the Jakarta Method.

The line is the time. Suharto seized the capital by himself and became the voice of the military. The US watched and decided, in that beginning, that this up-and-comer could work in their interests. The US and Suharto then used each other for the next 30 years.

You wrote "the US put him in power" and I say that's babying.

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