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Meanwhile, austerity measures such as cutting subsidies to fuel and foodstuffs like rice and flour, in countries undergoing severe cost of living and unemployment crises, fed growing political turmoil.
与此同时，在面临严峻的生活成本危机与失业危机的国家，削减燃料和米面等食品补贴紧缩措施加剧了政治动荡。
The crisis was especially dire in Indonesia.
这场危机在印尼尤为严重。
As the rupiah continued to plunge into 1998, the country was gripped by political discontent and violence, as mob attacks on the ethnic Chinese minority led to scores of deaths.
随着印尼盾(卢比)在1998年继续暴跌，印尼被政治不满和暴力所笼罩，暴徒对华裔少数民族的袭击导致数十人遇难。
In Jakarta, the military fired on student protesters at Trisakti University, killing four and fanning the flames of riots spreading across the country.
在雅加达(印尼首都)，军方向Trisakti大学的学生抗议者开枪，导致4名学生遇难，并煽动了蔓延全国的暴乱。
When Suharto raised fuel prices to fulfil IMF demands to produce a budget surplus, opposition intensified.
当苏哈托(印尼总统)提高燃料价格以满足国际货币基金组织产生预算盈余的要求时，反对声音加剧了。
In May 1998, he was forced from office.
1998年5月，他被迫下台。
At the time, defenders of the IMF insisted Suharto had been the author of his own downfall, claiming he had refused to implement reforms quickly enough to halt a crisis caused by his own corruption.
当时，国际货币基金组织的捍卫者坚称，苏哈托一手造成了自己的垮台，他们还声称苏哈托拒绝迅速实施改革，没能阻止由他自己的腐败引发的危机。
But other contemporaries recognised that insisting he instantly uproot the entire system of patronage on which his regime relied was an impossible demand.
但同时代的许多人都认识到，要求他立即铲除政权所依赖的整个赞助制度是异想天开。
“It’s crazy to ask people to commit suicide,” one diplomat remarked at the time.
“要求别人自杀是疯了，”一名外交官当时说。
Looking at images of Suharto signing the terms of an agreement with the IMF in January 1998, as the institution’s managing director, the French economist Michel Camdessus, loomed over him, it wasn’t hard to see this as a humiliating surrender of sovereignty.
看看苏哈托与国际货币基金组织于1998年1月签署协议条款的照片，当时，该组织总经理兼法国经济学家米歇尔·康德苏赫然站立在苏哈托面前，不难看出，这是耻辱性的主权投降。
And it did not take conspiracists to recognise that the US Treasury and many western investors wanted Suharto gone, despite the opposition of the state department and Pentagon to anything that threatened the stability of a US strategic partner in the Asia-Pacific region.
而且，不需要阴谋家，人们就能认识到，美国财政部和许多西方投资者希望苏哈托下台，尽管美国国务院和五角大楼反对任何威胁美国在亚太地区战略伙伴稳定的行为。
While the IMF didn’t plot Suharto’s removal, there was little question that US Treasury officials had come to see regime change as the only salvation for the Indonesian economy.
尽管国际货币基金组织没有策划苏哈托的下台，但毫无疑问，美国财政部官员已将印尼政权更迭视为拯救该国经济的唯一途径。
As Camdessus himself later admitted: “We created the conditions that obliged Suharto to leave his job.”
康德苏自己后来也承认: “我们创造了迫使苏哈托辞职的条件。”
To some American observers, Indonesia had proven an iron law of history: that the growing material prosperity of a citizenry would inevitably cause them to reject autocratic rule.
对一些美国观察人士来说，印尼已经证明了历史的铁律: 公民日益增长的物质财富不可避免将导致他们拒绝独裁统治。
