A NUMBER of high-ranking state officials who had been joking around suddenly stopped speaking. Everyone became silent. Suharto's corpse was brought into the Astana Giribangun mausoleum complex. After being positioned, the casket was opened. The body was not only shrouded in ordinary burial cloth, but was also wrapped in thick white fabric.

Suwardi, a burial attendant in Karang Bangun village, had trouble opening the outer fabric right before the bo