Marzuki's charade

No sooner after President Abdurrahman Wahid had pledged "zero tolerance" for past corruptors this month, the Attorney General's Office went into full gear to prosecute top business leaders and government officials for their alleged past misdeeds.

In the past few days, the Attorney General's Office has named Siti Hardiyanti "Tutut" Rukmana, who is the eldest daughter of former president Soeharto, and Soeharto's younger half-brother Probosutedjo as suspects in two different scandals.

Tutut, who answered a summons on Tuesday, was questioned over her alleged role in a US$306 million oil pipeline project that one of her companies handled for state oil company Pertamina. Probosutedjo is wanted in connection with irregularities over the handling of a project for the Ministry of Forestry. No doubt we will see more big names paraded out in the coming days or weeks as the government tries to convince an increasingly skeptical public about its ability to go after past corruptors.

But if Attorney General Marzuki Darusman or President Abdurrahman hope this will impress the public, they could not be more wrong. Marzuki's record on this front since taking up office in October 1999 has been so abysmal that many people feel this new round of prosecutions will end up in the same place as most other big corruption cases have ended up: nowhere.

The biggest fish of them all, of course, was Soeharto. Yet, in spite of his nearly 80 years of age, he has outwitted the government, avoiding a court trial to this day, with little likelihood of it being resumed any time soon, if at all. The government managed to win a court conviction against Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, but thanks to the ineptness of Marzuki's staff, Tommy fled and is now at large.

The two-year jail sentence meted out to Soeharto's main crony, businessman Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, for corruption in the forestry sector is about the only achievement that Marzuki's office can brag about. And even then, his office nearly bungled it when Hasan was initially allowed by the court to serve his time at home, in conformity with his status at the time of his conviction.

The lessons of the Tommy case seem to have been lost completely on Marzuki's staff. Both Tutut and Probosutedjo are not under arrest in spite of their status as suspects. Obviously, this is a privilege that only a few suspected criminals could enjoy.

Given the government's appalling record on the anticorruption front and with little signs of this ever improving, it is probably worth pondering whether there is any point at all in the government continuing with this new round of prosecutions.

Abdurrahman may be trying to shore up his sagging popularity through tough talk about catching big-time corruptors, but unless Marzuki gets his act together, and quickly, then the longer-term impact will be an even more skeptical public, which in turn will only serve to further undermine the President's support.

It is common knowledge that trillions and trillions of rupiah were plundered by Soeharto and his cronies during his 32-year tenure. And one has to be completely blind or totally ignorant not to know who profited most from the corrupt regime. These corruption cases, replete with the necessary evidence consisting of the abundance of wealth that the protagonists still flaunt, are staring the government right in the face.

It is, nevertheless, unfair to lay the entire blame on Marzuki, for his brief is restricted to exploring the legal possibilities for bringing prosecutions against the corruptors. It would have been far more effective and efficient had the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) from the beginning issued a decree to repossess or freeze the assets of Soeharto's relatives and cronies.

This may be a draconian step by today's standards (although not by Soeharto's), but it would have spared us the agony of having to watch seemingly endless prosecutions, with little prospects of a satisfactory outcome. This way, at a single stroke, the billions of dollars stolen by Soeharto's cronies would be repossessed and the popular sense of justice served to some degree.

The legal approach, as opposed to the political approach through the MPR, is long and cumbersome, especially as Soeharto's cronies are putting up a fight and their lawyers are a cut above the state prosecutors.

The legal approach is necessarily piecemeal. Tutut is only being prosecuted over one shady oil pipeline contract. Bob Hasan was convicted over corruption in a forestry mapping project. Even with a favorable court verdict, the money recovered will likely be small compared to what they have allegedly stolen. The legal approach means dealing with corruption on a case by case basis, that is to say, with each crony and with his or her dubious business contracts, one at a time. At this rate, the government is squandering precious time and resources chasing shadows, while new corrupt practices are emerging involving new players.

Instead of trying to work up the public's indignation against past corruptors -- only to cause disappointment again later -- the government would be well advised to rethink its strategy. As the experience of the past 18 months has shown, the country has not recovered the stolen billions, and neither has the people's need to see justice being done been satisfied.