Prabowo Subianto

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Prabowo enrolled in Indonesia's Military Academy in Magelang in 1970. He graduated in 1974 with others who would gain senior leadership positions such as Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

In 1976, Prabowo served in the Indonesian National Army Special Force Kopassus and was assigned as the commander of Group 1 Komando Pasukan Sandhi Yudha (Kopassandha), which was one of the Indonesian Army's Nanggala commando units in East Timor, the former Portuguese territory that Indonesia had invaded the previous year. Prabowo, then 26 years old, was the youngest Nanggala commander. Prabowo led the mission to capture the vice president of Fretilin, who was the first Prime Minister of East Timor, Nicolau dos Reis Lobato. Guiding Prabowo was Antonio Lobato – Nicolau's younger brother. On 31 December 1978, Prabowo's company found and fatally shot Nicolau in the stomach as he was being escorted in Maubisse, fifty kilometres south of Dili.

In 1985 Prabowo attended the Advanced Infantry Officers Course at Fort Benning, in the United States for commando training. In the early 1990s, as the commander of Kopassus Group 3, the now Major General Prabowo attempted to crush the East Timorese independence movement by using irregular troops (hooded "ninja" gangs dressed in black and operating at night) and, in main towns and villages, militias trained and directed by Kopassus commanders. Human rights abuses rose. The Army's 1997 campaign was called Operation Eradicate.

In 1996, Prabowo led the Mapenduma Operation in the mountainous terrain of Papua, Indonesia. The goal of the operation was the release of 11 scientific researchers, who had been taken hostage by the Free Papua Movement (OPM). The researchers were five Indonesians, four Britons, one Dutchman and his pregnant German wife. Two of the Indonesian male hostages were killed shortly before the rescue operation. The mission involved covert support from British Military Attache and SAS veteran Colonel Ivor Helberg. Following the hostage transfer, Kopassus under Prabowo began a reprisal campaign against villages perceived to support OPM, in one incident at Geselema village attacking the villagers with a military helicopter disguised as a Red Cross helicopter.

On 20 March 1998, Prabowo was appointed head of the 27,000-strong Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad), that Suharto had commanded in 1965.

Less than three months after his appointment as head of Kostrad, on the first day of the May 1998 riots, Prabowo urged the commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces, Wiranto, to let him bring his Strategic Reserve units from outside Jakarta into the city to help restore order. Hundreds of men trained by Kopassus (Prabowo's former command) were flown from Dili to Yogyakarta in chartered planes, and then on to Jakarta by train. Prabowo publicly urged Indonesians to join him to fight "traitors to the nation". On the morning of 14 May, Kopassus troops escorted young thugs from Lampung in southern Sumatra into the capital. Thus Prabowo was accused of using his contacts in his former command to import and create trouble, while Wiranto had declined to give Prabowo's current command, Kostrad, permission to quell the existing trouble, in line with classic Javanese tactic to stir chaos to discredit a rival and/or seize power.

Troops under Prabowo's command kidnapped and tortured at least nine democracy activists in the months before the May 1998 Riots. In one testimony, a former detainee told of being tortured for days in an unidentified location, allegedly a military camp where most of their time was spent blindfolded, while being forced to answer repeated questions, mainly concerning their political activities. The abuse included being punched, terrorised physically and mentally, and given electric shocks. Later, in 2009, two of the nine men were candidates for Gerindra, Prabowo's political party, and another served as his media adviser. Prabowo was also suspected of organising the kidnappings of another 13 activists (all of whom remain "missing") between February 1997 and May 1998.

Later investigations into the May riots revealed that violence in Jakarta was the result of an internal struggle within the military elite to become Suharto's successor. Many believed Prabowo, as Strategic Reserve commander, sought to become his father-in-law's successor and coveted the commander of the Armed Forces position held by General Wiranto, who was favoured to succeed Suharto. Together with Operations Commander for Greater Jakarta (Panglima Komando Operasi Jakarta Raya, Pangkoops Jaya) Major General Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, Prabowo aimed to terrorise opponents of the government and to show that Wiranto was "an incompetent commander who could not control disorder". During August and September, the fact-finding team interviewed Prabowo, Sjafrie, and other military commanders regarding their movements during the Jakarta riots. Prabowo asserted that he was unsure of the precise movements of military forces in the capital and deferred to Sjafrie. In its final report, the fact-finding team suspected that, on the night of 14 May, Prabowo met with several Armed Forces and prominent civilian figures at the Kostrad headquarters to discuss organization of the violence. However, this was later refuted by several people who attended the meeting, including prominent human rights lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution and Joint Fact-Finding Team member Bambang Widjojanto. Further testimonies by Prabowo in the years following the investigation contradicted the team's report and led to scepticism of the team's allegations.

On 21 May 1998, Suharto announced his resignation from the presidency and Vice President B. J. Habibie took over as president.

On the afternoon following Habibie's inauguration as president, Prabowo demanded of Habibie that he be put in charge of the Army in place of Wiranto. However, Habibie and Wiranto demoted Prabowo from Kostrad commander instead, and the following day, announced Wiranto's promotion to Minister of Defense and Security and the Indonesian National Armed Forces (ABRI, later renamed TNI) commander. A furious Prabowo went to the Presidential Palace packing a sidearm and with trucks of his Kostrad troops. On being blocked from entering the Habibie's office, he instead went to Suharto who rebuked him. Prabowo was visited by Wiranto at his home over the weekend of 23–24 May and subsequently reassigned to a non-combat role at the Armed Forces Command and General Staff College in Bandung.

Following an ABRI investigation, Prabowo acknowledged responsibility for the kidnapping of the activists. He was discharged from military service in August. He and Wiranto denied that the discharge was a result of disciplinary action. In August 1998, the Dewan Kehormatan Perwira (Officers Council of Honor) tried and found Prabowo guilty of "misinterpreting orders" in the kidnapping of anti-Suharto activists in 1998. He was discharged from military services and went into a voluntary exile in Jordan where he knew that country's new young King Abdullah as a fellow commander of special forces. In an interview with Asiaweek magazine in 2000, Prabowo said "I never threatened Habibie. I was not behind the riots. That is a great lie. I never betrayed Pak Harto. I never betrayed Habibie. I never betrayed my country...There was a certain group that wanted to make me a scapegoat, maybe to hide their involvement."" Rights groups have long questioned Prabowo's eligibility to run for president, noting that he was discharged dishonorably from the Army in August 1998 for "misinterpreting orders" in the abduction of the democracy activists. While that was the military's official statement, observers have long believed that it was a coup conspiracy that saw Prabowo, then the commander of the Army Strategic Reserves, given his marching orders.

As a 2014 presidential candidate, Prabowo's past came under renewed scrutiny, with many organizations calling for him to step down. A coalition, which consisted of Imparsial, Kontras, the Setara Institute, and the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), combined under the Civil Society Coalition Against Forgetting, visited the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in Jakarta on 7 May 2014 to urge the commission to re-investigate Prabowo. A 27 June 2014 report indicated that an investigative journalist, Allan Nairn, had been threatened with arrest "for revealing the former general's role in human rights abuses."

Business career

After being discharged from the military, Prabowo joined his brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo's business. He purchased Kiani Kertas, a paper pulp and plantation company based in Mangkajang, East Kalimantan. Prior to Prabowo's purchase, Kiani was owned by Bob Hasan, a businessman close to former President Suharto. Today, Prabowo's Nusantara Group controls 27 companies in Indonesia and abroad. Prabowo's companies include Nusantara Energy (oil and natural gas, coal), Tidar Kerinci Agung (palm oil plantations) and Jaladri Nusantara (fishery industry).

Prabowo rebranded Kiani Kertas to Kertas Nusantara. The company was established in 1990 and is part of the Nusantara Energy. It controls an area of 3,400 hectares used for paper mills, employee housing, private schools, and various company facilities. Kiani has been awarded ISO 900–2005 status as one of the highest quality management companies. It is reported that Kiani Kertas has been experiencing financial difficulties, and in early 2014, workers took to the streets to demand their wages which had not been paid in five months.

Prabowo was the wealthiest presidential candidate in the 2009 election, with assets of Rp 1.5 trillion (about US$150 million) and US$7.5 million.

In 2007, PT Ridlatama, whose majority stakeholder was British-based Churchill PLC, conducted a geo-survey eastern Kalimantan for coal. Two months after the survey yielded positive results, East Kutai officials granted mining licenses to Nusantara Energy (a subsidiary of the Nusantara Group, a conglomerate owned by Prabowo's family) to operate in the area surveyed by Ridlatama. In 2010, Ridlatama's license was revoked, effectively completing Nusantara's take over of Churchill's operations. Churchill appealed to the Supreme Court of Indonesia but lost the case. In 2012, Churchill filed a case against the government of Indonesia at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, demanding $2 billion in compensation. Indonesia argued that ICSID had no authority to arbitrate. In 2014 ICSID ruled that it had the authority and the case is still ongoing.

In 2014, the regent of East Kutai, Isran Noor, publicly endorsed Prabowo as a presidential candidate. He also considered pressing criminal charges against Churchill, alleging that Churchill forged its license.

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