Attorney General's performance
I refer to the article in The Jakarta Post titled Syahril's resistance on June 23, 2000 (a translated version from Bisnis Indonesia).
This paper voiced its criticism on Marzuki Darusman's move to detain the former Bank Indonesia governor, and asked why then other culprits in the Bank Bali affair are still enjoying the freedom to move about?
This respected paper is unable to place and categorize Marzuki, not as a real attorney general, but more like a messenger or a valet in a hotel (no offense meant, it is only a comparison).
Only when somebody calls does the messenger boy appear with a white board and bell, and a name scrawled on it. And that is all. Bringing cases to an end, whether guilty or not, is not his task judging by the fact that not one criminal corruption case has reached the stage of being filed in court. And strangely enough the international community listed Indonesia as maybe number two or number three of the most corrupt nations in the world when it was governed by Soeharto and Habibie. So either that listing is grossly incorrect and unfair, or our attorney general is grossly overpromoted, incompetent or it is all politically motivated.
I have seen an article from the German magazine Der Spiegel of May 25, 2000 on the Paiton electricity plant I and II cases. The article refers to when Djiteng visited Germany in 1995 and was pushed into signing a contract, valued at US$1.6 billion when it should only be $1 billion, along with photos, including the smiling faces of Helmut Kohl fishing with Soeharto.
And then the Paiton I lawsuit was withdrawn from court at the special request of Uncle Sam via President Abdurrahman Wahid. And we will have to pay higher energy bills just to repay General Electric's overpriced delivery. And also to Siemens who for at least the second time (the first time I know of was the scandal of the Krakatau-Steel works in the early 70s) is involved again in dirty affairs. So there is no blacklisting in Indonesia?
So I would advise the editors of Bisnis Indonesia to be realistic and wait until the year 2030 for a reasonably performing attorney general, and in the meantime just register the acts for the messenger boys?
Y. SANTO
Jakarta