The billions of dollars in state assets allegedly stolen by former president Soeharto, who died Sunday, could again become a hot topic of international debate during the United Nations conference on corruption beginning in Bali Monday.
The Indonesian government, though notorious for being ranked by the Berlin-based Transparency International as one of the most corrupt governments in the world, is hosting the second UN conference on efforts to battle corruption. This is the second major UN meeting held in Bali in less than two months.
Earlier last month, Indonesia, though ranked as the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, hosted the UN conference on climate change, also in Bali. That event was attended by almost 10,000 delegates from more than 105 countries.
For Indonesia itself, the timing of the five-day, Second Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (CoP-UNCAC-2) could not be better for at least three reasons.
First, fighting corruption has been one of the top priorities of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration and the achievements thus far, though seen by many as poor, are commendable, given the uphill challenge caused by the deeply entrenched corrupt system of public administration and the political culture.
Second, President Yudhoyono met with World Bank President Robert Zoellick in New York on the sideline of the UN General Assembly last September, to express Indonesia's strong commitment to participate in the joint Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
The StAR initiative, which was launched last year, will step up the legal action against corrupt government leaders and officials from a bilateral to multilateral battle under the World Bank-UN umbrella. The more than 100 countries that have signed and ratified the UNCAC are obliged to provide mutual assistance to each other to trace and recover stolen assets from corruptors.
Third, the StAR agenda had again resurfaced as a hot topic in the national debates in recent weeks, especially since early this month, when former president Soeharto was rushed to Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta in critical condition. The assets of the late Soeharto, whom Transparency International ranked as one of the most corrupt former government leaders in the world with cumulative looting of between US$15 billion and $35 billion during his 1967-1998 rule, are supposed to be one of the primary targets of StAR.
In this context, the UN conference in Bali is expected to conclude agreements on concrete multilateral efforts to prevent, fight and penalize corruption and to work for the prompt return of assets of illicit origin under StAR programs.
Many developing countries like Indonesia are strongly committed to fighting corruption. Indonesia, for example, has enacted several pieces of legislation directly related to combating corruption, such as the anti-corruption law and anti-money laundering law, and has set up a politically independent corruption-eradication commission.
The 2006 law on witness protection was designed also to bolster the campaign against corruption by encouraging officials (whistle-blowers) to report any evidence of wrongdoing, even against their superiors. Many cases of corruption have been thrown out due to a lack of evidence from witnesses. Witnesses or victims are often reluctant to give testimony in prominent cases due to pressure or threats from the powerful parties involved.
However, the results of the anti-corruption campaign are still far below expectations, not only because the problem is so complex, but because corruption is endemic, systemic and deeply institutionalized, involving the whole system of government, notably the judiciary and the police. The government also does not have adequate institutional capacity to implement the anti-corruption laws.
Hence, the role of developed countries in helping developing nations by providing the necessary technical assistance for institutional-capacity building.
The UN meeting is challenged to produce concrete programs to encourage member states to provide mutual legal assistance in tracing, recovering and returning stolen assets under the StAR scheme as well as in designing effective systems for preventing corruption.
Find Article by Date