The Soeharto fortune

After months of clamoring for the Habibie administration to be earnest in making true its stated determination to stamp out corruption, collusion and nepotism at all levels of society, the government's announcement yesterday that it would form a team to investigate former president Soeharto "in the next few days" for his alleged illegal accumulation of personal wealth over past decades should have come as a welcome turn of events to Indonesians.

The truth is that while many Indonesians have indeed welcomed the move, as announced yesterday by the Coordinating Minister for Development Supervision and State Administrative Reforms Hartarto, as a step in the right direction, more than a few people have cautioned the public against harboring too much hope that the team will be able to come up with anything substantial in the near future.

Indeed, many Indonesians take ex-president Soeharto's challenge -- made in a surprise televised appearance earlier this month -- for anyone accusing him of stashing away ill-acquired wealth in foreign banks to come up with proof, as a distasteful act of mockery aimed at the public. Indonesians find it difficult to accept that the ex-president owns "not a single cent" in bank accounts, either here or abroad, as he claimed during his televised speech.

Obviously, by common reasoning, any person who can afford to run the sprawling Tapos ranch in the Bogor foothills, or build himself a palatial mansion costing some Rp 28 billion near Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta -- not to mention owning a plush Jakarta home and other luxuries -- must be at least a little better off than the average Indonesian man on the street.

The difficulty in uncovering the truth about the alleged Soeharto fortune is in providing solid evidence that a legal process demands. Of course, the best and easiest way to prove corruption, or at least obtain a persuasive indication of it, is to compare the ex-president's current assets against those he owned before he took office 32 years ago and ask him to explain how he acquired those holdings. Unfortunately, such a reversal of the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the accused is unknown in Indonesia.

However, as people tend to focus their attention on Soeharto's personal wealth, one fundamental fact concerning the practice of corruption under Soeharto's New Order regime tends to be forgotten. In past years, when allegations of corruption and injustices committed under the New Order regime were already rife, Soeharto personally was never a main target. Rather, it was the preferential allocation of economic resources and opportunities by Soeharto and his regime to benefit the president's immediate family and cronies that sparked resentment.

Of course, there can be little doubt that such preferential treatment of the president's close kin and associates inevitably led to corrupt practices and economic distortions. That Soeharto himself also reaped considerable benefits from such a situation also seems indisputable. The ex-president's and his family's regal lifestyles as witnessed by television viewers of the time supports such an assumption.

As far as Soeharto personally is concerned, however, it could well turn out that the evidence against him, as far as corruption as defined by the law is concerned, will always remain circumstantial. That is, of course, unless the investigators can come up with solid evidence of his wrongdoings. Considering all this, it is important that the investigations that are about to take place cover not only Soeharto, but also include his family and close connections.

In the public's minds, the case against the Soeharto clan is clear enough, given the past display of opulence indulged in by the New Order's first family. Now that the government has taken the irreversible decision to investigate Soeharto as the public demands, it is evidently finding itself in a difficult position: It must come up with something to substantiate the indications of dishonesty practiced by the Soeharto clan, or run the risk that its efforts will be regarded as merely cosmetic to rally greater support for the Habibie government.