Imprisoned and tortured under Suharto's rule, Mugiyanto is unimpressed by the latest debate over Indonesia's ailing former dictator: whether or not he should be forgiven for his regime's crimes.
A student activist during the 1998 protests that toppled Suharto, Mugiyanto recounted how he was abducted from his Jakarta boarding house and tortured at a base of the army's notorious Kopassus special forces. Along with two roommates, Mugiyanto said he was blindfolded and interrogated over two days while his captors beat and terrorised him with an electric prod.
"They put it on my legs and my hands. Every time they didn't like my answer, they used the electric shock," Mugiyanto told AFP.
According to the group Mugiyanto heads, the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (IKOHI), 23 dissidents were arrested in the final days of Suharto's regime. Mugiyanto is one of only nine accounted for.
As he lies ailing in hospital, the man who ruled Indonesia ruthlessly for 32 years has become an object of sympathy for many people here, despite the massive human rights abuses of his regime and graft that bled the economy of as much as 35 billion dollars, according to watchdog Transparency International.
As he lies ailing in hospital, the man who ruled Indonesia ruthlessly for 32 years has become an object of sympathy for many people here, despite the massive human rights abuses of his regime and graft that bled the economy of as much as 35 billion dollars, according to watchdog Transparency International.
Current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono -- Indonesia's first-ever directly elected leader -- cut short a visit to Malaysia on January 12 when Suharto's condition deteriorated, and sounded a conciliatory note.
"The achievements and works that he carried out were not small things, especially like national development, even though as a human being, and like other leaders, Pak Harto had some deficiencies and made some mistakes," Yudhoyono told a press briefing on his return.
Pak Harto is how Suharto is referred to with a mixture of affection and respect.
Some calls for forgiveness have been predictable.
Senior members of Suharto's former political vehicle, the Golkar party, used the immediate days after his January 4 admission to hospital to call for a 1.4-billion-dollar civil corruption case against him to be dropped. A criminal trial was abandoned in 2006 on health grounds.
The government made a bungled attempt last week to settle the civil case with the family which was rejected, but then Yudhoyono closed the matter by saying it was an inappropriate time to discuss it.
But more measured calls to forgive the 86-year-old -- often from unexpected quarters -- have been common in this Muslim-majority nation where the aged are treated with deep respect.
Amien Rais, a key opposition leader in 1998 and longtime critic of Suharto, now says it is time to forgive the fallen autocrat.
"For a dying man, I think we have to not come from a legal viewpoint but a higher one -- a moral, ethical and religious approach," Rais told AFP.
He argued that the excesses of Suharto's regime were the shared responsibility of Indonesia's entire elite, who supported him for most of his rule, and that a legal struggle now would be useless.
"His cronies must be brought to justice after his death," Rais said.
"His cronies must be brought to justice after his death," Rais said.
It is a sentiment shared by other critics of the Suharto regime, with the normally outspoken Tempo magazine writing in a recent editorial that corruption cases were now redundant.
"Let the man who is at the end of life's long journey have some peace," the magazine wrote.
Even Jose Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor -- a country that lost around 200,000, or a third of its population, during Suharto's bloody quarter-century occupation -- thinks forgiveness is appropriate.
"It is impossible for us to forget the past but East Timor should forgive him before he dies, and I ask people to pray for Suharto as the former president of Indonesia," Ramos-Horta said last week.
Torture victim Mugiyanto, for his part, is having none of it.
He believes that many of the calls to forgive Suharto have been driven by people close to his regime who know any successful attacks against him could uncover their own dodgy dealings -- an opinion Rais concedes is probably true.
A full accounting for the crimes of the past must come before any forgiveness, Mugiyanto insisted.
A full accounting for the crimes of the past must come before any forgiveness, Mugiyanto insisted.
"The point is whether Suharto admits and asks for forgiveness for mistakes... I can forgive, anybody can forgive anyone who asks for forgiveness. But it must be very clear first: forgive them for what?" (*)
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