Mon, 05 Jun 2000

Bulogate not valid reason to unseat Gus Dur: Expert

BANDUNG (JP): The House of Representatives lacks the legal basis to summon President Abdurrahman Wahid over the alleged Rp 35 billion scam at the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), not to mention to seek his removal, an observer said on Sunday.

Sri Sumantri, a senior constitutional law expert from Padjadjaran University said after speaking at a seminar here that the House could not question Abdurrahman over the case because it had nothing to do with any presidential decree.

"It would be very easy to ask for the President's accountability if he issued a decree. Due to the absence of the decree, it is Sapuan who should be held responsible," Sumantri said.

He was responding to a plan by the House commission III for agriculture and plantations to seek the President's clarification after the main suspect in the scandal, suspended Bulog deputy chief Sapuan, implicated Abdurrahman.

The money stolen from Bulog was taken by people claiming to be acting on Abdurrahman's behalf. The President has admitted he asked about the possibility of taking Bulog money to pay for projects in troubled Aceh province, but said he never went ahead with the idea.

Sumantri also said the case was not a valid reason for the legislators to ask for an extraordinary session of the People's Consultative Assembly to remove Abdurrahman, because there was no clear evidence of his direct involvement and, therefore, violation of any terms in the state policy guidelines (GBHN) and the Constitution.

Pressure on Abdurrahman's leadership is mounting ahead of a meeting of the 700-member Assembly which will convene in August to review his performance.

Police have named Sapuan and Abdurrahman's masseur, Suwondo, as suspects in their investigation. The latter so far has not appeared for questioning and his whereabouts remains unknown.

A close aide of Abdurrahman, Bondan Gunawan, resigned as acting state secretary last week over the affair.

Meanwhile, lawyers of Suwondo's wife said in a media statement on Sunday that their client admitted she had received Rp 10 billion from her husband and that she would return the money to the government.

The lawyers also said that their client, Tety Nursetiati, is due to be questioned by the police on Monday.

The lawyers added that Tety had also sent a letter to the President to request security protection for her family as they had received threats and had been followed by unidentified people since the scandal surfaced two weeks ago.

On Saturday, the National Awakening Party (PKB), which was co- founded by Abdurrahman, attacked politicians it claims are exaggerating the extent of the Bulogate, saying in reality it was simple swindle that people close to the President were victims of.

PKB secretary-general Muhaimin Iskandar suggested that the Rp 35 billion (US$4 million) scandal had been politically manipulated by "certain" political elites to undermine the president.

Muhaimin contended that the case was actually quite simple: Abdurrahman's masseur Suwondo cheated the then Bulog deputy chief Sapuan by claiming that he was mandated by the President to receive Rp 35 billion from Sapuan.

"This is not a corruption case, this is merely a case of deceit," he said.

Muhaimin said he first met Suwondo five years ago when the latter visited the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) office in Jakarta. At that time, according to Muhaimin, Suwondo was working for former president Soeharto.

"There is no doubt that Suwondo is Soeharto's man. I know this exactly," claimed Muhaimin, who described Suwondo as a skilled masseur.

Separately, National Economic Council member Faisal Basri urged the government to comprehensively resolve the scandal because failure to do so would worsen the country's already tarnished image.

Faisal, also a National Mandate Party (PAN) deputy chairman, hoped the scandal would not be misused as political axe against the current government. (25/44/byg/prb)