Marzuki's charade
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.