Treasure hunt aborted

The elite group of special international detectives, assigned and probably prepaid for, must be disappointed now that the treasure hunt, the underworld and the international media are eagerly waiting for, has been suspended by the country's highest justice watchdog.

The official reason given is that the key figure in the dragging (and for some boring) drama, has suddenly been pronounced ill as the result of a mild stroke and is therefore unfit to stand trial for an indefinite period.

Of course, justice has to be performed indiscriminately, but this is a special case concerning a special man who had enjoyed special privileges for more than thirty years as the undisputed ruler.

The media asked if an ordinary man -- not an old former president -- stole a goat or a chicken from his neighbor and suddenly became sick, would he also be exempted from police custody and not be put in jail for his criminal offense?

It was remarkable how many Cabinet ministers and former power holders flocked to the hospital to demonstrate their sympathy to the former president. They thus have betrayed their stance in the reform era. The former ruler's cronies come and go through a secret backdoor or they visit the former strongman in the dark of the night.

In a sense the Time empire subjects may feel relieved for a while, now that the libel case and the demand for billions of dollars in damages have been interrupted.

The confusion relating to the general election finale so that the president (incumbent) had to interfere, the bloody East Timor saga, the Acehnese demand for greater autonomy, the renewed Ambon flare up, the aspirations of the people of Irian Jaya who demand fairer treatment, have been as it were eclipsed, by the sickness of a man, responsible for "hiding the greatest treasure of the outgoing millennium".

The discovery, if ever, of proof, that a certain sum of dollars was transferred from a Swiss bank to Austria will never be written again in history. For it seems that only American cyclist Lance Armstrong can recover from brain surgery and win the Tour de France.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta