Teten Masduki

Teten Masduki
Coordinator
Indonesia Corruption Watch
(ICW)
Jakarta

Since the formal collapse of Soeharto's authoritarian
government, the pattern of corruption shifted from one conducted
in an oligarchic manner to a "multiparty" pattern occurring
within and across all major parties and sectors. In the last five
years this has become the major impediment to the progress of
reform in various fields. Recovery and improvement in the
economy, legal system, civil service bureaucracy and in the
political system have been greatly affected.

The coalition government of President Megawati Soekarnoputri
is marked by the strengthening influence of money in the process
of politics and public administration -- and compromises among
elite circles for political and economic power sharing. This
period has enabled the old economic and political forces of the
New Order's "kleptocracy", in the words of political analysts, to
build new relations of political and business patronage. Thus old
political and economic structures and values, including corrupt
political behavior have been further preserved without change.

Corruption is no longer even a "sexy" political issue among
current political leaders who were vying for popularity under
former presidents B.J. Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid.

The reported irregularities in budget spending for military
barracks during the early stages of Megawati's administration
remains unresolved. The demand by a handful of legislators to
form a disciplinary council at the House of Representatives (DPR)
for graft felon and current Speaker Akbar Tandjung's suspension
has never materialized, despite the court finding him guilty of
misappropriating State Logistics Agency (Bulog) money.

Meanwhile, the move by the Public Officials' Wealth Audit
Agency (KPKPN) to officially report to the police Attorney
General MA Rahman for financial asset irregularities which smack
of corruption, has failed to secure political support from the
President or the DPR. Indeed, Megawati has stood firm in
demanding that Rahman stay on as her Attorney General despite the
evidence and allegations against him. The same situation also
prevails in cases of the sale of assets of the Indonesian Bank
Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and the divestment or privatization
of state-owned enterprises.

The granting of release and discharge (R&D) to indebted
bankers through Presidential Instruction No.8/2002 constitutes
the climax of the manifestation of political protection or
patronage for tycoons made popular by the New Order. The
instruction has wide implications particularly in terms of
corruption eradication. It also indicates the retention of an
economic policy with greater priority given to the super wealthy.
This R&D policy is a political commodity which will likely become
an instrument of corruption for the relevant officials and
politicians.

The transition toward regional autonomy, which has transferred
much administrative and financial power to the local leaders
without the strengthening of public participation, has also
become a source of "collective corruption". The drafting and
implementation of regional budgets, regent elections,
presentation of accountability reports and formulation of
regional regulations have become easy targets for regional
officials and politicians to enrich themselves.

Hardly any election of regional heads or the planning of the
local budget has proceeded without public protests because
bribery often clouds such events. Regional autonomy, which was
designed to enhance public services and welfare through a
decentralization of power, is now doing just the opposite.

Under Megawati, the nation has also had to face increasingly
dismal law enforcement. Attorney General MA Rahman, who should be
at the forefront of corruption eradication, is instead starting
to look like a key player in allowing corruption to continue,
based the aforementioned KPKPN case, which has been put deep on
the back burners.

Bribery, or possibly extortion, allegedly involving judges
with the South Jakarta District Court was again uncovered this
year. As political protection may no longer be effective, the
judicial institution will become a target of delinquent fat cats
and corrupt officials trying to buy "legal certainty" to evade
justice and stay out of prison.

In this reform period we need the political will of the
national leadership -- the President, the Minister of Justice and
the Supreme Court Chairman -- to conduct a judicial purge.

The prosecution office needs a clean and professional attorney
general who is also a strong and visionary figure, so as to be
capable of launching an internal reform for its purge and
empowerment. The Supreme Court Chairman and Minister of Justice
have enough legal instruments to penalize judges who are fond of
commercializing their verdicts.

But the opportunity, the power and the public support to put
our legal sector in order have come to no avail. So far only the
judges in the case of Manulife have been suspended by a
presidential decree due to indications of a dishonest decision --
and this only happened because of international pressure.

The establishment of the Commission on Eradication of
Corruption Crimes (KPK) by Law No.30/2002 with its unusual
authority to substitute prosecution and police institutions that
fail to function, has offered new hope.

Yet the eventual dissolution of KPKPN in its initial phase by
the legislature, raises fears over the independence of KPK, which
can also be disbanded by the DPR and the government if it begins
to disturb their interests.

Furthermore, the combination of the KPKPN function of auditing
public officials' wealth with that of the KPK is not complemented
by the necessary stipulations in Law No. 30/2002; especially
those on the obligation of officials to report their wealth to
KPK, penalties for their failure to report or for submitting
false reports, access to financial and banking institutions, and
the principle of sharing the burden of proof in the process of
prosecution.

Therefore, it is impossible to expect significant efforts from
the top (the government and DPR) regarding corruption
eradication, which should become a national commitment, at least
as reflected in the decrees of the People's Consultative Assembly
(MPR) (No.IX/1998 and No.VIII/2001).

Even when bribes have constituted the main activity and income
of people's representatives, and political decisions in the
legislature, budgeting and control functions have been made
commodities, the House and political parties have changed into a
fierce corruption machine that can kill the entire system of
government control and law enforcement.

Public administration has been dominated by a "kleptocracy"
and corruption has become the only way to power, so that its
elimination is even more unthinkable. Corruption is no longer a
crime of power that legally or socially bears high risks -- just
lavish financial and political benefits for its perpetrators.
Today's creed is that the bigger the abused funds, the more
difficult it is to send its culprits to prison.

Eradicating corruption now is nearly hopeless without any
political and economic structural change, which can only be
expected from the younger generation.

The experience in many countries with successful eradication
of systematic corruption shows the determinant factor of strong
political figures and these leaders' commitment to make their
people prosper. Here, the reverse is true, where politicians are
the leading actors of corruption at the expense of the nation's
people.

2. Pro15 -- After dictatorship
2 X 30

After dictatorship in Iraq:
What can the world learn?

Ralf Dahrendorf
Sociologist
Project Syndicate
London

The war in Iraq had barely begun when the minds of those who
conceived the invasion turned to what should happen after the
victory over Saddam Hussein's regime -- a victory everyone
assumed to be inevitable. Politicians and experts have sought to
draw comparisons with recent examples like Afghanistan, Sierra
Leone, East Timor, but also with more remote and fundamental
cases.

After all, what is expected in Iraq is the fall of a highly
ideological dictatorship. Is there anything we can learn from the
last examples of this kind, from the collapse of communism in
Eastern Europe in 1989, or the end of the Third Reich in Germany
in 1945 and the process of "de-Nazification" that followed?

The risks of such comparisons are almost too obvious for
words. Every case has its own defining features. Regarding the
demise of communism, the experiences of, say, Poland and Romania
are profoundly different. As we cross even more profound cultural
boundaries, comparisons become still less relevant. Yet there are
a few issues that are common to the unraveling of most
ideological dictatorships.

One such issue has to do with memory, and dealing with the
past. This is connected with a practical question: Who is in a
position to build a new country on the ruins of the old regime?

It is rare for a counter-elite to emerge quickly, much less
for an elite-in-waiting to take over. In Germany in the 1950s,
there were many complaints about old Nazis reappearing in a
democratic guise and occupying important positions. Many of us
fought against the apparent "restoration" of the old regime.

In Eastern Europe, the old leaders initially disappeared from
the scene, but not for long. Ex-communists were often
reincarnated politically as social democrats. Those who had been
in the resistance-like Vaclav Havel in Prague-found this hard to
take. Yet these communist apparatchiks were not the same people
they had been. Circumstances had changed and the people with
them.

This has a great deal to do with methods of dealing with the
past. Post-1945 Germany and post-1989 Poland are examples of
countries that moved forward without much attention to the past.
Intellectuals complained that too little time and energy was
spent on "mastering" the past. They had good reasons to complain.

Indeed, after a decade or so, the need to draw clear lines and
tell all, including the painful stories, became overwhelming. But
the most successful postcommunist countries moved forward first
and coped with the past later. Those who could not lift their
eyes from the horrors of the past made less progress.

A second general issue has to do with priorities. There is a
natural tendency -- especially in Anglo-Saxon countries -- to
regard elections as the most effective institutional remedy for
countries emerging from ideological dictatorships. To be sure,
elections are important; but by themselves they do not solve
problems. Indeed, if they disappoint, the very principles on
which they are based-democracy and civil liberties-will be
discredited.

I am a strong, almost old-fashioned believer in parliamentary
democracy, but when it comes to situations like postwar Iraq, two
other imperatives are equally pressing. One is the need to
establish an effective administration to make certain that new
policies of tolerance and market economics are actually
implemented. In East European countries, this was a major
problem, and it is only through accession negotiations with the
European Union that such administrative reform has been assured.

The second imperative is the rule of law. The law has a
different place in different cultures, and it presents special
problems in Islamic countries. However, it is crucial that every
effort be made to educate and install an impartial and
incorruptible judiciary. Judges must not only be honest, but must
be seen to be so and, as such, trusted. The process of
establishing the rule of law has been difficult and has remained
incomplete in most post-dictatorial countries; yet it will be a
key to successful recovery in Iraq as well.

One of the key points emphasized in my 1990 book, Reflections
on the Revolution in Europe, is also valid for Iraq. The road
from the collapse of a dictatorial regime backed by ideology to a
more liberal order leads through a valley of tears. Things are
likely to get worse before they get better.

This is notably the case in economic terms. Even post-War
Germany's acclaimed, miracle-working Economics Minister, Ludwig
Erhard, was deeply unpopular in the early 1950s, because it
appeared as if only a few were getting rich, while most West
Germans remained poor or got poorer.

For a certain period in the process of recovery, it is simply
necessary for people to keep their nerve. Poland is a recent
example of a country that achieved this feat. It requires
plausible leadership and the reasonable hope that things will get
better before long.

If this time of transition goes wrong, the alternative is
renewed turmoil and the victory of fundamentalists of one kind or
another. The warning "Beware of the valley of tears!" is thus the
one that must be taken most seriously by those responsible for
rebuilding an Iraq scarred by the terrors of dictatorship and the
ravages of war.

The writer is a member of the British House of Lords, a former
Rector of the London School of Economics and also a former Warden
of St. Anthony's College, Oxford.