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Showing posts from October 7, 2004

New Indonesian Leaders Have Fared Very Well

From the arabnews.com by Amir Taheri Excerpt: The key question now is: What is it precisely that the Indonesians have chosen by electing SBY? The honest answer is: Nobody knows. ----------------------------------------------------- New Indonesian Leaders Have Fared Very Well Amir Taheri, Arab News Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono! Hard name to learn. So, let us call him SBY, as do his compatriots, especially the tens of millions who voted last week to make him the first directly elected president of Indonesia. Under normal circumstances I should have had a personal grudge against SBY. The reason is that when I covered the fall of Gen. Suharto’s dictatorship in the late 1990s, I was one of the pessimists who feared that Indonesia was heading for “Yugoslav-style” disintegration and civil war. Now SBY and his people have proved me, and other pessimists, wrong. Nevertheless, let me put in a good word for myself. At the time of Suharto’s fall the Indonesian economy was on