Youths seek legal solution to the Haryanto affair
Youths seek legal solution to the Haryanto affair
JAKARTA (JP): About 30 youths demanded a legal solution yesterday to the allegations of corruption against Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto.
Organized by the outspoken Pijar Foundation, they staged a noisy protest in the foyer of the House of Representatives where they also criticized legislators for failing to supervise government officials' conduct.
The banner-waving protesters expressed their dismay that the highly publicized controversy was ended by President Soeharto's intervention instead of by the courts of law.
Under the watchful eyes of security officers, they took turn reading poems and chanting slogans on the need to have strict law enforcement.
"The public is losing their trust in law enforcement because corruption involving dignitaries is never brought to court. It is only politically resolved by the President," Pijar spokesman Andrianto shouted at the protesters.
The leaked documents, which contained detailed accounts of Haryanto's alleged corruption, were reports filed by Development Inspector General Kentot Harseno to President Soeharto.
Andrianto pointed out that the leakage of the reports has sharpened the political rivalry between the Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI) leaders, of which Haryanto is one, in one camp, and Harseno and Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono in the other.
ICMI leaders have come up in fierce defense of Haryanto, a close associate of State Minister for Research and Technology B.J. Habibie, who also chairs ICMI.
Pijar activists proposed that both Haryanto and those responsible for the leakage of the secret reports be brought to trial.
They said that the Haryanto affair should encourage Indonesia to have a law that requires all bureaucrats to declare their wealth before and after they hold positions.
On a separate occasion yesterday, Muladi, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, said he is in favor of the demands for bureaucrats to have their fortunes audited before and after they assume office.
"The practice should be made standard. If officials' wealth is investigated simply because they are suspected of corruption, it won't help mend the situation," he said.
Muladi, the rector of Semarang's Diponegoro University, said to have senior bureaucrats declare their wealth is not the only effective way of uprooting corruption.
"We need to reform the whole system and strictly enforce the laws," he said.
Soehardjo, an expert in constitutional laws, said that few people know that in fact Indonesia already has a law, passed in the 1960s that requires auditing of bureaucrats' wealth.
"The law has never worked," he said. "If we tried to enforce it now, it would be useless because we don't have a transparent government."
"Let's just hope that beginning this year, government officials will do some introspection so that the law can be put into practice," he added.
Meanwhile, Habibie refused to comment when asked for his opinion about the growing demand for bureaucrats to declare their wealth. "I don't know, I don't know," he said.
But he said there should be a legal basis so that "no one may enter one's room whenever they like and check on our possessions". (pan/har)