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