Once Upon a Time with Harmoko
His meteoric rise from newspaper cartoonist to Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the nation's highest political institution, is phenomenal. As Suharto's longest-serving information minister, he was vested with extraordinary powers: determining the life and death of a publication and the livelihood of tens of thousands of its workers, and controlling the flow of information in the country. His rags-to-riches story is representative of that of an official who amassed wealth and political influence in the Suharto era. Harmoko rose along with Suharto. But he proved cleverer than the patriarch who fell with the collapse of his New Order regime. One after another the dictator's men were dragged before court. But not Harmoko. He was left untouched. TEMPO's investigation into the life of this extraordinary man tells why.
January 14, 2003
VIRTUALLY without furniture, save several small tables and a black sofa, the spacious room seems to drown Harmoko in a sea of emptiness. The walls, painted white, are beginning to fade. A frame enclosing a painting—of light-red orchids—doesn't help much to break the monotony. There are no books, piles of newspapers, or shreds of paper on the floor normally found in a busy editorial office.
It is in this room that Harmoko has his off
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