Soeharto warns Habibie

Soeharto warns Habibie

JAKARTA (JP): Former president Soeharto's lawyer Yohanes Yacob
warned President B.J.Habibie on Saturday that if the
investigation of his client's wealth resulted in court
proceedings there would be a devastating backlash against the
whole government.

"If Soeharto does go to court, it could drag down the
government, bringing senior incumbent and former officials -- as
well as all the cronies suspected of accruing ill-gotten wealth
-- into messy litigation," Yacob said in a written statement.

The trial process, if allowed to proceed, would be messy,
time-consuming and arduous, something the nation could not afford
at a time when numerous people were plunging into absolute
poverty and millions of workers were being fired, the statement
added.

Yacob's warning comes at a time when students across the
country are staging almost daily demonstrations demanding
Soeharto's trial for alleged economic and political crimes.

Habibie's plan to set up an independent team to investigate
Soeharto does not seem to be proving effective to assuage
students' protests, particularly as provincial prosecutors are
slowly uncovering the enormity of the wealth accumulated by
Soeharto and his family.

Many of the most recent discoveries have been of millions of
hectares of land in almost all of the country's 27 provinces.

And Soeharto's move last week to cede control of seven
foundations holding combined assets of more than Rp 4 trillion
(US$530 million) to the government also did little to calm the
nationwide student demonstrations.

Yacob warned in his four-point statement that the demands of
several groups for Soeharto to be tried was not the only item on
their political agenda.

"We remind the Habibie administration that their next target
will be to abolish the Armed Forces' sociopolitical role and to
dismiss all those seen as supporters of the status quo," he said.

At the start of the statement, Yacob expressed full support
for the government's stance and the decree approved by the recent
Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly that calls
for the gradual reduction of the military's sociopolitical role.

"The military's sociopolitical role has been so deeply rooted
in all aspects of the nation's life that it cannot be stopped
outright without causing devastating distortions in the life of
both the nation and the state," the statement said.

The statement also appealed to the public to stop condemning
Soeharto and to allow the legal process take its course.

Yacob told the private Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia
(RCTI) television station on Saturday that Soeharto was ready to
be tried as a suspect.

But he totally rejected Habibie's plan to set up an
independent team to assist the Attorney General's Office and
National Police in the investigation of Soeharto.

"If the team is set up and comprises public figures, then the
Attorney General's Office and National Police should be
dissolved," Yacob told RCTI, as quoted by Antara.

Yacob conceded that Soeharto told him not to respond to
allegations against the former president regarding the latter's
wealth.

"He told me 'Let it be. One day we will know who is right and
who is wrong'," Yacob added.

Attorney General Andi Muhammad Ghalib, who has been under
public pressure to act more firmly and speedily to prosecute
Soeharto, on Saturday again asked for patience, pledging that
Soeharto would soon be interrogated.

"There is by no means any intention on the part of the
government to delay the investigation of Soeharto, his family and
cronies," Ghalib told reporters in Ujungpandang.

Ghalib regretted that people's demands had focused almost
entirely on Soeharto.

"It has been forgotten that what my office's anticorruption
investigation has achieved over the past five months is six times
as much as that achieved throughout last year," he was quoted by
Antara as saying.

The Consortium for National Law Reform said in Jakarta on
Saturday that Habibie's move to set up an independent team to
probe Soeharto would only stir up endless debates over its
membership, thereby further prolonging the actual investigation.

"MPR Decree No.XI/1998 on the eradication of corruption,
collusion and nepotism does not require the formation of an
independent team. The ruling instead calls for the establishment
of a special institution whose membership consists of government
officials and public figures," the consortium said in a statement
signed by its secretary, Dadang Trisasongko.

What was urgently needed now was for the Habibie
administration to act firmly to use the full force of the law
against Soeharto, the statement added. (vin)