A bastion of justice?

A bastion of justice?

Even with two senior members of President B.J. Habibie's
cabinet, Minister of Justice Muladi and Attorney General Andi
Muhammad Ghalib, due to depart Jakarta for Switzerland tomorrow
on what officials say is a special mission to trace any assets
former president Soeharto might have stashed away in Europe,
public confidence in the government's sincerity appears to remain
as low as ever.

There are various arguments to explain this stubborn
skepticism among the public. One is that banking codes in many
countries require banks to protect the confidentiality of their
clients' accounts unless proof of their unlawful nature can be
provided, as would be the case, for example, with laundered
money. In Soeharto's case, the logical step to take would be --
or so the argument goes -- to first formally declare the ex-
president legally delinquent with respect to the ownership of the
money.

Another explanation -- and one with obvious political
overtones -- is that it would be impossible for the incumbent
administration in Jakarta to formally charge Soeharto with
corruption. The logic behind this reasoning is that to do so
would be to commit political suicide since the current regime
from the President down to practically all other members of the
administration, are old hands of the thoroughly corrupt toppled
Soeharto regime. Rubbish?

Why, then, the strong and persistent public impression that
the attorney general and President Habibie have been dragging
their feet in investigating Soeharto? With the media, here and
abroad, continuing to document the luxury in which the Soeharto
children are said to be wallowing in, the government keeps on
insisting that no evidence of such wealth exists. Almost a full
year of investigation has led us nowhere.

In all this, the continuous unexplained mutations in the
Attorney General's Office have only helped to befuddle the
public. In June last year, for no transparent reason, President
Habibie named the head of the Armed Forces prosecutor's office,
Maj. Gen. Andi M. Ghalib, to replace attorney general Soedjono
Atmonegoro, after he had launched an investigation into the
alleged corruption by Soeharto and his officials. After an
earlier meeting with President Habibie, Soedjono had said he had
proposed to the President that his office become an independent
institution, separate from the executive. He gave no indication
that he knew he was about to be removed. Sworn in by then
president Soeharto on March 19, 1998, Soedjono had been in office
only three weeks after Soeharto's successor, President Habibie,
ostensibly retained him in his cabinet.

Another unexplained mutation in the Attorney General's Office
was the replacement last February of Maj. Gen. Syamsu Djalal,
then deputy attorney general in charge of intelligence affairs,
by Lt. Gen. Kertanagara, formerly inspector general at the
Ministry of Defense and Security.

The most recent mutations involved the removal of four deputy
attorney generals, among them Antonius Sujata, the deputy for
special crimes who chaired the team of investigators looking into
the Soeharto case, and Soehandjono, the deputy for state and
civil administrative affairs. Again, there was no explanation for
the move. Under the circumstances, Indonesians can be forgiven
for suspecting yet another move to protect Soeharto although
officials were quick to explain that it had nothing to do with
the investigation of the ex-president.

Indonesians, without doubt, would have much preferred to be
able to trust in the old credo that the Attorney General's
Office, together with the Supreme Court, are this country's
ultimate bastions of justice. Unfortunately, there has been
little over the past years, and up to the present, to validate
such optimism. It is a pity to have to say that the government,
and the Attorney General's Office in particular, have only
themselves to blame for their lack of credibility in the public
eye.

It seems that Indonesians will have to wait for a new
democratic government to take the place of the present before
they can even hope of getting a judiciary that they can trust to
protect their legitimate interests.