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.