Crony investigation

If things were not as they unfortunately are -- a president who was Soeharto's protege presiding over a cabinet largely made up of Soeharto cronies -- the main headline in The Jakarta Post Dec. 11 ('Citizen' Soeharto questioned), might have raised high hopes that at last Soeharto would soon stand trial and be stripped of his ill-gotten billions.

But no such hopes arose in my expectant breast -- they were killed stone dead by a headline s few days earlier, Soeharto ready to be questioned. The clear message of those words was that, thanks to the shilly-shallying by the government (see above) in starting an investigation into the Soeharto family's vast wealth, they have had ample time to ship their loot abroad and in other ways to cover their tracks.

Worse still, the investigation is in the hands of an "ex- president man". For a start, the attorney general should never be a military man, more particularly if he is also a crony of the man he is supposed to be investigating. The attorney general should be a skilled and respected lawyer.

The last straw was when, just a few days ago, the attorney general conceded that the Timor car scam was nepotistic, as if we had not all known this since the Timor "project" was first announced. A more barefaced act of nepotism would be hard to find. So I now wait anxiously to see if my forebodings are justified.

JAMES RICHARDS

Jakarta