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)