FATF hypocrisy
While it may be of some embarrassment to Indonesia to be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for being uncooperative in preventing money laundering, Indonesia may take heart from the fact that many FATF members are, indeed, themselves guilty of money laundering on a grand scale.
Relatives of the former Nigerian despot, Zachary Abacha, for example, were found to have US$1.4 billion in banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, $60 million with Citibank of the United States and $450 million in various British banks. All these countries, apart from Liechtenstein, are FATF members!
Indonesia's own homegrown tyrant, Soeharto, is thought to have $15 billion tucked away in overseas banks, $9 billion of which was transferred from Swiss to Austrian banks around the time of his downfall. So effective has Soeharto been in secreting this money in FATF member countries, that he even has the audacity to deny that he has an overseas bank account at all!
It may, therefore, seem odd that the mostly economically developed of the 31 FATF members are willing to enforce blacklists, sanctions and various financial measures, recommendations which include: "not keeping anonymous accounts or accounts in obviously fictitious names" and "taking reasonable measures to obtain information about the true identity of the persons on whose behalf an account is opened or a transaction conducted if there are any doubts as to whether these clients or customers are acting on their own behalf". Clearly the FATF countries are not heeding their own advice, albeit, in their case, unsupported by punitive measures.
Should the FATF eventually get its act together and apply its "recommendations" in an even-handed way, there is little doubt that Third World dictators, such as Duvalier ($500 million), Mobutu ($5 billion) and Marcos ($10 billion), will in future feel far less confident about being able to milk their countries dry and buy support and protection, so as to enjoy the spoils of their ruthless oppression, even after they have been dethroned.
FRANK RICHARDSON
Tangerang, Banten