Soeharto's children 'ignored Lee's advice'

Soeharto's children 'ignored Lee's advice'

SINGAPORE (AFP): Former Indonesian president Soeharto's children ignored advice to not abuse their position for financial and business gain, according to excerpts of Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs published on Sunday.

The children's behavior in the end contributed to their father's downfall, he said.

Lee said that former U.S. vice president Walter Mondale asked him in March 1998 to compare the former Indonesian president and Marcos.

"You knew Marcos. Was he a hero or a crook? How does Soeharto compare to Marcos? Is Soeharto a patriot or a crook?" Lee quoted Mondale as asking him.

Mondale was passing through Singapore after carrying a message to Soeharto from President Bill Clinton as the political and economic crisis in Indonesia deepened.

"I felt Mondale was making up his mind on Soeharto's motivations before submitting his recommendations to his president," Lee said.

"I answered that Marcos might have started off as a hero but ended up as a crook," Lee said. "Soeharto was different. His heroes were not (George) Washington or (Thomas) Jefferson or Madison, but the sultans of Solo in Central Java."

Lee said Soeharto, who ruled for 32 years, "saw himself as a patriot. I will not classify him as a crook."

Marcos was deposed from 20 years in power following a popular uprising in 1986 amid allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. He fled to exile in Hawaii where he died in 1989.

The three Philippine governments which succeeded Marcos have so far been unsuccessful in prosecuting any member of the family over the past 14 years despite charges they plundered billions of dollars from the national coffers.

Indonesia has set the stage for the 79-year-old Soeharto's trial on corruption charges.

Lee revealed he met two Soeharto daughters at the height of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998 to drive home the gravity Indonesia's problems highlighted by the tailspin of the rupiah currency.

"Alarmed at the rapid decline of the value of the rupiah, I told our ambassador to Jakarta to ask Tutut if she could meet me in Singapore to convey my views to her father," he said in the excerpts published in the Sunday Times.

The meeting with Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana (Tutut) took place on Christmas day in 1997 with the presence of Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

"I strongly urged her and her siblings to understand that international fund managers in Jakarta had focused on the economic privileges the president's children were enjoying," Lee said.

"During this period of crisis, it was best if they withdrew completely from the market and did not engage in any new projects."

Lee said he asked Tutut "point blank" whether she could get the message understood by her siblings. "She answered with equal frankness that she could not," said Lee, whose second volume of memoirs titled From Third World to First: The Singapore Story is to be launched here on Thursday.

Lee said he persisted, sending Tutut the daily market reports on Indonesia from Singapore-based analysts. "To judge from the actions of the Soeharto children, it had no effect on them."

Lee said he met another Soeharto daughter, Siti Hediati Prabowo, in January 1998, who he said came to Singapore with her father's knowledge to raise U.S. dollar bonds.