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So, another one cheats us all. At least Suharto, when he reaches the same Circle of Hell where Augusto Pinochet is having a pitchfork repeatedly inserted by some minor demon, can comfort himself with that.

‘We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them,’ said his daughter. That’s an ‘if’ as big as the Ritz. He had somewhere in the region of 200,000 faults. A third of the population of East Timor.

Like many I imagine, I cut my political teeth reading about what successive American governments got up to in Central and South America in the second half of the 20th century in the name of democracy. You can’t read those histories without also reading about what went down in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran (we helped with that one)…

And, yes, in Indonesia. We help with that one as well: ‘…a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change,’ said Sir Andrew Gilchrist of the FCO at the time of the coup that led to Suharto coming to power.

In Western Democratic terms, Suharto was ‘our boy’. Let us mark his passing.