I DON’T care who he is, a general or a minister. If he acts unconstitutionally, I will beat him up.” Suharto spat out these ominous words aboard the presidential plane back in mid-1989, returning from a visit to Belgrade, capital of what was then Yugoslavia.

Suharto didn’t mention General (ret) Leonardus Benyamin Moerdani by name. But it was well known that by the end of the 1980s, Suharto and Benny—once the closest of colleagues—were