Welcome UNCAC

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