By DPA
Solo (Indonesia) : The body of former Indonesian president Suharto was laid to rest at his family’s mausoleum near the central Java city of Solo on Monday in a state funeral attended by the country’s top leaders.
Family members, all dressed in black, took turns placing flowers on the coffin of the second Indonesian president before it was laid in its grave. A military guard of honour fired salvos in tribute to the late strongman.
A sombre mood permeated the elaborate burial complex of Astana Giribangun in Karanganyar regency in central Java while hundreds of ministers and state guests paid their respects.
Suharto, a former five-star general, died following multiple organ failure Sunday at Jakarta’s Pertamina Hospital, where he had been treated for 23 days. He was 86.
A small military ceremony plus a traditional Javanese ritual by members of his family were held in front of his Jakarta home before the coffin, which was brought out by eight soldiers, was flown to central Java from an air force base in the national capital.
Thousands of Indonesians lined the streets all the way from his residence in central Jakarta to Halim Perdanakusuma air force base in east Jakarta, waving when the motorcade passed them.
After arrival in Solo accompanied by family members, the coffin was driven to the Suharto mausoleum in a motorcade of high-ranking civilian and military officials.
Millions of onlookers, many of whom had waited for hours, lined the 35-km route from the airport to the cemetery, where he was buried next to his wife Siti Suhartinah who died in 1996.
There has been round-the-clock television coverage of the passing of the “smiling general” and “father of development” who led the world’s largest Muslim-majority country with an iron fist for 32 years.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono led the military ceremony honouring Suharto, a sign that the current leadership is prepared to downplay the brutality and rampant corruption of the former strongman’s regime in the interests of national unity.
Yudhoyono formally received the coffin carried by eight soldiers and covered by the national flag of red and white.
Hundreds of dignitaries and old friends flocked to the burial complex in central Java to pay their last respects to a man both admired as one of Asia’s longest-serving leaders and reviled as one of the continent’s most corrupt leaders in the 20th century.
Millions nationwide held prayer services and cited verses from the Koran for Suharto.
“My father has returned to God,” said Suharto’s eldest daughter Siti Hadijanti Rukmana at a news conference at the hospital shortly after his death.
A mourning period of seven days was announced by the government which ordered the Indonesian flag to be lowered to half mast across the country during the period.