Signals of crisis ignored

Signals of crisis ignored

I am writing in response to the letter 'Who really triggers the
crisis' of April 30. The question posed by Lee Way Chun is a valid
one. The answer to this is simple. The raider George Soros and
friends pulled the trigger when they attacked in July 1997 the
overvalued rupiah, exactly as they did years ago with the English
pound.

Another question, not posed by Lee, is the origin of the
crisis. The answer to that one is equally simple:

* Look into the 117 points of agreement with the IMF:

-- The essence: the system is required to undergo a certain
degree of "normalization" and overhaul.

-- As we can see, Minister of Justice Muladi had to work overtime
to deliver in six weeks a bankruptcy law to replace the old
Dutch-made one, which did not match with today's standards of
business, and at the same time, he is installing a brand new
special court for handling bankruptcy cases.

* Look into the essence of the students' protests: total reforms,
rejecting and stating the malperformance of the MPR/DPR for
accepting the government's report on the past (sixth) five-year
development.

If we look around the globe, for instance South Korea, the
Attorney General is now investigating if there was gross
negligence by authorities in 1996/1997, who did not act despite
the clear signals (from the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB, etc.)
that the crisis was in the making. Now, they are also
investigating former President Kim Young-sam in how far he was
responsible. The same applies to India, where former Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao is being investigated on charges of
corruption.

Further in our case: Read the World Bank's reports for the
past 30 years, the segment of recommendations, and articles from
Kwik Kian Gie.

Total malfunctioning of our authorities can be found in the
minister of finance, and his friend the governor of Bank
Indonesia, who did dare to state (July 1997) that our economy was
fundamentally sound and different from Thailand... and a few
weeks later, the system crumbled...

Y. SANTO

Jakarta