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| History: The End of the New Order Regime |
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After 1988, the stability of the New Order regime was undermined. At the international level, the fall of the USSR meant that the West was no longer prepared to support anticommunist regimes. The 1991 Dili massacre altered US and European willingness to nurture military contacts in Indonesia. The regime responded to renewed separatism in Aceh and the experience of the collapse of the USSR, which they understood to have been caused by more open policies, and became convinced of the need to clamp down to keep the nation together. At the same time, Suharto’s children became increasingly greedy and corruption and immorality reached objectionable proportions. Deregulation during 1983 - 1995 in response to low oil prices allowed banks to house money-laundering activities. Open capital markets brought unexpected amounts of attention and unanticipated risks. The Indonesian people - the urban poor, the increasingly sophisticated middle class coupled with heightening regional sentiment and a more religious society - began to feel that the price they paid for the regime was too high. They craved more justice and freedom at the very time that the regime was pushing to grant less. Stability was undermined as the regime and domestic society attempted to pull the country in different directions.
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