Welcome UNCAC

Dec. 9, 2003, which has been declared Anti-Corruption Day by the United Nations, was marked by the Indonesian people as an additional starting point for the campaign against corruption, as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) was signed in Merida (Mexico).

At least 125 countries sent their representatives, including Indonesian delegates, although Minister of Justice Yusril Ihza Mahendra "technically" signed the declaration on Dec. 18, 2003, at UN Headquarters in New York. It means that this world body may intervene in chronic Indonesian corruption cases, and of course would cooperate with the "powerful" Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) -- as the treaty is designed to accomplish -- to uncover corruption, detect illicit funds and return them to the countries from which they were stolen (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 11).

By signing the treaty, it would really be a high hope for the majority of Indonesians to see corruption brought to an end as several points of the convention bind us to eradicate corruption through an obligation to declare corruption, bribery, abuse of state assets and power as criminal activities.

A new breakthrough as mentioned above is the detection and the return of illicit funds to the countries from which they were stolen, meaning that countries that become the seat of illicit funds are obliged to return them to where they were stolen. This is really a new green light to resolve the lingering and dragging social problems that have crippled our country for too long.

It (the treaty) will be a strong "weapon" for the KPK to return ill-gotten funds deposited in foreign countries. These new hopes, of course, need the support of all layers of society.

All these would show to the people, as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said in Mexico, that corruption, which represents a tax on the poor and steals from the needy to enrich the wealthy (the Post Dec. 11), would find no more place in Indonesia in the years to come.

M. RUSDI
Jakarta