Of mice and corrupt Machiavellian men

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Don't kill rats. They only steal some of your food. Why don't you kill the House members, they steal a lot more," joked a passenger on a train heading from Rangkas Bitung to Jakarta when offered packs of rat poison by a vendor.

The remark was made amid reports of the discovery of travelers checks worth Rp 10 million (US$1,000) on the eighth floor of the House of Representatives building. The money reportedly originated from a bureaucrat and is believed to be a bribe for a legislator.

Another report cited factual evidence that wealthy legislators have refused to report their wealth to the Public Servants' Wealth Audit Commission. Many others who have actually reported their wealth have been found to be the recipients of "grants" valued in some cases over hundreds of million of rupiah from unidentified sources.

Swearing to combat corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN) has been a high-profile slogan among officials and politicians ever since the start of the reform process, which began after the downfall of president Soeharto in 1998.

All three presidents after him -- B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri -- have expressed their commitment to fight such illegal practices, believed to have significantly contributed to the economic crisis.

Informal leaders and experts joined the chorus by vehemently condemning corruption, denouncing officials, lawmakers and businessmen involved in corruption during the old regime.

Unfortunately, little has changed despite the fact that many officials who pledged to fight corruption have been promoted within the bureaucracy, legislative bodies and other key institutions. Nonetheless the problem remains as virulent as ever, and with no end in sight.

The only difference may be in the fact that common people are now more aware of the wrongdoings committed by their leaders, their representatives in the House, other key figures and even their own colleagues.

For Wardah Hafidz of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), promises to fight corruption remain just empty slogans. There has been no real action from the government or legal authorities to punish those involved in corruption in the past, she said.

Wardah said many prominent people, including those in the legislative body, still like to create "dark rooms" -- areas of their lives where corruption occurs -- to enable them to partake in corrupt practices. House members, for example, are reluctant to approve their own code of ethics. "I think many of them still try to create a 'dark room for rats' to play," Wardah told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

She said many people were pessimistic about the government's seriousness in fighting corruption. "How can we seriously fight corruption, when Tommy, who has admitted guilt for corruption, was declared innocent by Supreme Court justices?" Wardah asked, referring to Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, Soeharto's youngest son.

Wardah said many factors had stoked the anger of the people. First, corruption continues unabated in all levels of society and government, and many politicians and bureaucrats still have no sense of shame when committing a wrongdoing. Most of them have no real concept of moral ethics as the civil servants of the people.

Second, while many Indonesians find it difficult to meet their daily living expenses, they also see that some officials can easily collect money from illegal practices.

Third, with the lone exception of Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, no corruptors have been punished by the courts after all these years after the outrage at KKN first began.

Wardah said the government should seriously respond to the people's disappointment. The government should also make a breakthrough by establishing a high-profile anticorruption team, she said. The team should have adequate authority, both morally and legally, to hold a thorough investigation. And the government must also select judges who are not corrupt.

"I think there might be some judges who are still credible," she said, adding that both members of an investigative team and judges should be under police protection since there are many people who will harbor enmity toward them, and may try to kill them in the same way as the judge who pronounced Tommy guilty was murdered shortly after Megawati took over from Gus Dur.

She said if the government only depended on conventional methods to fight corruption, it would not work. Many people who were involved in major corruption still have power and are very wealthy and influential.

"If the government fails to make a breakthrough effort to combat corruption, the hungry and angry people will use their own way to express their disappointment. People's justice is very possible," warned Wardah.