Corruption: Indonesia, Germany

Corruption: Indonesia, Germany

From Tempo

Willy Kaligis wrote about corruption in Indonesia and Germany in Tempo several weeks ago.

As an Indonesian who also lives in Germany (as Kaligis does) I will not criticize his opinion about what kind of punishment the crooks deserve, but rather his comparison between corruption in Germany and Indonesia.

Kaligis labeled Germany as a clean nation, while Indonesia is full of corruptors. For instance, he described that German government officials immediately resign if they are found guilty of corruption. But in fact, it is absolutely untrue.

I have a good example of this case. The Minister of Economy, Moellemann, the Minister of Transportation, Krauss, the Prime Minister Streibl from Bayern State (Bavaria) and the Minister of Environment, Gauweiler, have all been found guilty of corruption, but none of them resigned by themselves. After a detailed investigation, their mistakes were proven and eventually they quietly resigned.

Another example is the president of the Bundestag (Parliament), Rita Suessmuth. Although the German government proved that she had abused her power and used state funds for her private business, she only apologized and promised to return the money. Was she punished? No, and now she remains in her office as the president of the German Parliament.

Willy Kaligis stated that a strong defense of German government officials was not popular in Germany. It is also an erroneous description.

The recent collusion between the late Prime Minister of Bavaria State, Joseph Strauss, and the businessmen Flick in manipulating a large amount of tax funds was widely reported by the German press. In that case, the present Prime Minister of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber and the Minister of Finance, Theo Waigel strongly argued that Strauss was innocent. And at the same time, the businessman Flick escaped to Switzerland.

And now the latest, ironic example is that a case similar to Bapindo-Eddy Tansil has occurred in Germany. The crook is Dr. Joerg Schneider who manipulated bank data and robbed the Deutsche Bank of Rp 6.2 trillion. The difference is that the Indonesian government succeeded in bringing Eddy Tansil to court, but the German government failed both to save its money and send him to prison, because Dr. Schneider had already escaped to the U.S. with 240 million Deutschemarks (US$150 million).

Again Kaligis explained clearly that no racial discrimination occurred in Germany because the nation has learned a lot from its dark history. But I have seen with my own eyes that the Germans beat and even kill foreigners from Turkey, Africa, Vietnam, and those who are descendants of Jews. Their houses were also burned. The situation is almost the same as that of the Hitler era.

So it is not exactly true that the nation has learned from its history and is much cleaner than Indonesia.

ADI SOEBJANTO

Schwieberdingen, Germany