The fall guy for the mighty who've fallen

The fall guy for the mighty who've fallen

JAKARTA (JP): Last week I did not commemorate the victory of
the Pancasila state ideology over the antigovernment coup
plotters, who in 1965 helped put the then Gen. Soeharto into the
country's saddle of power. However, I did spend my idle time on
another important matter.

I tried to ponder the fate of the smiling general's smiling
youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra, or Tommy. I sincerely felt
sympathy for the business baron because the Supreme Court
sentenced him to 18 months in jail. Tommy and Ricardo Gelael, a
partner of his, were found guilty of corruption in a 1995 land
exchange deal between wholesale firm PT Goro Batara Sakti and the
State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

Tommy and the other Soeharto children started developing their
business interests after their father managed to fasten his grip
as a kleptomaniac ruler. Tommy started with the Humpuss Group in
1984 when he was 22 years of age. The group has 70 companies in
various sectors, including aviation, automotives, toll road
construction, oil, gas, petrochemicals, timber and agribusiness.

According to Asia's Wealth Club, a list of the 100 richest
people in Asia, Tommy's estimated net worth is US$600 million.
But he is a pauper compared to his sister Tutut, whose estimated
wealth is $2 billion.

However, regardless of how rich he is, my initial reaction
following the verdict's announcement was one of surprise:
Soeharto's son going to jail? It was beyond the nation's wildest
dream until 1998, the year he was forced by the students to step
down.

But after two minutes of thinking and blinking I realized that
it showed how times have really changed, the nation has been
freed and the country's judiciary is courageous enough to hear
the people. It is no longer a tool of a heartless tyrant.

When the crime was committed, Tommy, as with the other
Soehartos, must have been carried away by smugness, believing his
father's iron-fist rule would continue and God would step down
once the mighty Soeharto went to heaven (mind you, Soeharto still
put an extra star on each of his epaulets).

But my humble self felt deep sympathy when Tommy seemed to be
at a loss about how to avoid a prompt journey to Cipinang Prison.
He could ask for a judicial review from the Supreme Court but he
seemed to be aware that he was short of fresh material evidence
to support his plea.

At last he remembered Abdurrahman Wahid, the president he
knows well. Tommy knows Gus Dur not only as a head of state who
until recently was heads over heels to throw him behind bars, but
also as a saint. So why not beg the pardon of such a good man?

The public and Tommy were united in waiting for the
presidential decision. Normally a head of state would need months
to study his request, weighing it together with the
considerations of the Supreme Court and other officials before
making a decision. That would usually take up enough time for
someone to keep out of the slammer.

However, Tommy again needed our sympathy. No sooner had the
energetic Gus Dur reached the palace on his return from a foreign
trip on Wednesday than he declared there would be no pardon for
Tommy.

Gus Dur cannot be blamed, or applauded, for everything. The
anticorruption drive was started by the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR) in 1998 in its shocking decree, which singled out
Soeharto, his children and cronies as possible culprits.

The greatest -- some would say tragic -- irony of the decree
was that it was signed by none other then MPR speaker Harmoko,
who until a few weeks before was Soeharto's most loyal fellow
traveler.

Now who is to blame for the decree made by the country's
highest constitutional body? Harmoko? Two hundred million
Indonesians? Of course not.

My neighbor, maybe. He guiltlessly commented on the decree:
"The whole Cendana family will be moved to Cipinang? Why not?
They are rich, they buy the whole plot of land and will not need
to build a wall because the old one is high enough to protect
them."

But it is hard to jail my neighbor because he is an editor
whose newspaper was twice the victim of Soeharto's sword of
Damocles.

Many believe Tommy has sacrificed for all, especially his
siblings. Yet we are glad to see that his condition is much
better than other Indonesians, like the members of the Group of
50, the critics of his father who were ruthlessly ostracized for
voicing their political stand, or those who were jailed by a
kangaroo court at his pleasure.

At least Tommy got a fair trial. And he may yet become a hero
by acting as the "protective agent" for the rest of the
Soehartos.

-- Thayeb I. Sabil