The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 6 | Issue 3 | Mar 03, 2008

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"Corruption Ruins Everything": Gridlock over Suharto'sLegacy in Indonesia (Part I)

Peter King

“Corruption Ruins Everything”: Gridlockover Suharto’s Legacy in Indonesia (Part I)

Peter King

Indonesia since the fall of Suharto in 1998under reformasi remains subject to powerfultendencies for disintegrasi—both province-based “separatism” and general socio-politicaldecay. These tendencies are greatly aggravatedby the failure of democratically electedpresidents and parliaments to effectively tackleendemic corruption or reform the armedforces, which continue to enjoy near-totalimmunity as a major practitioner, guarantorand enforcer of corrupt business practice andextortion. This article notes the activism of civilsociety and liberal media on the corruptionissue and the commendable new array of anti-corruption institutions. But it argues thatreform efforts have been virtually nullified bybroad collusion of Indonesia’s political,bureaucratic, military and business elites insustaining—while “democratizing” anddecentralizing—the system of corruptioninherited from Suharto. The reform effort isnow subject to political stasis or gridlockinduced by money politics. Some reformersbelieve that politics in Indonesia has beeneffectively replaced by “transactions”. Ina r g u i n g t h a t “ K K N ” [ 1 ] “ r u i n severything”—people’s well-being, investmentprospects , government budgets anddevelopment planning, democratic politics, thejustice sector (including its corruption-fightingcapacities), military professionalism, theenvironment and more—the author is serious.The article suggests that real change mustawait new social and political constellations

and s t ruggles in i t ia ted outs ide theparliamentary arena.

P a r t I I c a n b e r e a d h e r e(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2680).

Recent surveys suggest that there is much lessconcern now about Indonesian disintegration inthe usual sense—provincial defection-- than inthe early days of reformasi under PresidentsJusuf Habibie (1998-9) and AbdurrahmanWahid/Gus Dur (1999-2001). At that time bothAcehnese and Papuan civil society mobilizedstrongly for independence and East Timormanaged to achieve it.[2] Aceh since early2005 has enjoyed a ceasefire and disarmamentagreement between the Free Aceh Movement(GAM) and Jakarta in which referendum andindependence demands have been put asideand any immediate danger of secessionaverted. But Papua has remained restive andthe special autonomy deal of 2001 has clearlyfailed to bring reconciliation or peace,undermined as it has been at every turn bynationalists and corruptors —and the military(who combine these roles)--at the Centre and inPapua. Nationalists—all those prepared to backcoercion and military action against proponentsof peaceful demands for justice and self-d e t e r m i n a t i o n a m o n g a l i e n a t e dminorities—could also pose a long-term threatto the Aceh peace.[3]

If the threat of outright disintegrasi byprovincial defection has been lowered a little,the threat of political stasis (the “gridlock” ofmy title), leading to disintegrasi in a moregeneral sense, has not. KKN (Korupsi, Kolusi

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dan Nepotisme) remains at the heart ofIndonesia’s problems. The economy which wasso devastated by the Asian crisis in 1997-98continues to languish and benefits mainly thosewho contrived to avoid their just dessertsfollowing the financial meltdown of that time.External debt, estimated at $130.2 billion for2006 was still half of GDP [4]; per capitaincome remains barely $1000 per annum forIndonesia’s 225 million people, and half ofthem live on less than $2 per day. The bill fordebt repayment and interest, both domesticand foreign is almost double the developmentbudget. Indonesia has now paid off the IMFdebt incurred in 1997-8, and the Rp2,500trillion (US 260 billion) economy is growing ataround 6 per cent [5], but headaches continuewith infrastructure development andaccommodating foreign investment, and thebudgetary situation could become stressfulagain when $100 per barrel oil impacts onimport costs, which are not adequately offsetby (corruption-prone) exports, and fuelsubsidies.

This article explores the role of KKN, and theviolence, especially TNI (Tentara NasionalIndonesia—armed forces), so often intimatelyassociated with it, in future prospects for stasisand disintegrasi and in Indonesia. At the sametime it canvasses the potential role of civilsociety and political struggles in bringing KKNand its dependent Indonesian elite undercontrol. It also highlights the neglected role offoreign actors, especially big resource investorsand resource consumers, in the KKN dynamicand conundrum. It seeks to develop aframework for the understanding and potentialextirpation of KKN post reformasi going beyondthe hegemonic World Bank or l iberalunderstanding of the anti-corruptionstruggle.[6] In the liberal view corruptionreform depends on strengthening an existinglegal-moral reform movement which is beingled by one—the reforming—segment of theexisting Indonesian elite. This segment ispresumed to be allied with wider civil society

forces in a struggle against the practitioners ofKKN in legal, judicial, police, bureaucratic(ministerial and state corporate), military,political and business circles.

Rather, I will argue, KKN should be conceivedfirst of all as a partly competitive, partlycooperative, leading industry of the ruling elitea s a w h o l e . I t i s c e r t a i n l y m o r ecompetitive—and decentralized—than it wasunder the Suharto dictatorship, and there arequite a few new players. But there has been nosignificant elimination of old big players—manyof whom are living a luxurious exile inextradition-free Singapore.[7] Moreover intra-elite competition over the spoils of KKN may beoften a charade. When police and prosecutors,prosecutors and judges, or politicians andcronies appear to be in conflict there may beexplicit or tacit deals in operation for mutuallybeneficial outcomes. After all the wholebusiness of appealing corruption cases up thecourt hierarchy (or KKN food chain) is essentialfor the more intensive extraction as well as themore democratic distribution of bribes.Meanwhile police, prosecutors and judges alikeare at least scoring points with some publicsfor assiduous hard work—more likely foreignpublics than domestic.

Underlying the bustle in the legal system thereseem to be two fundamental deals, or perhapsconspiracies, which have shaped courtoutcomes decisively and rendered fundamentalreform just about impossible. One is themilitary guarantee of the “safety” of theSuharto family, including apparently its ill-gotten tens of billions of dollars. This wasoriginally extended by then TNI commanderand Minister of Defence Wiranto at the pointwhere Suharto yielded up the Presidency inMay 1998. It is evidently being honoured by hissuccessors, as discussed below.[8] The seconddeal/conspiracy is even more speculative—butseems to be another fundamental pillar of thepost reformasi corruption order. It is the failureto seriously pursue the bank officials and

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conglomerate cronies who conspired to steal orembezzle tens of billions of dollars of BankIndonesia liquidity credit rescue funds issued in1997-8.

Suharto testifies in (his) parliament: DPR BudgetSession,

Jakarta, 1991 (Adjjudan Presiden Kolonel Wirantobehind right)

In addition, the unreformed TNI continues toenjoy the fruits of its own largely untouchedand untouchable KKN and extortion empire. Itcontinues to play a central role by both violentand other means in upholding its own KKNorder and much of the new decentralised KKNorder as a whole right down to village levelwhere the parallel government of its “territorialfunction” continues to operate, despite solemnpost-Suharto promises to repeal it.[9]

Final ly, the external drivers of localcorruption—rather conspicuously neglected inthe tables and methodology of TransparencyInternational—deserve to be placed centrally inthe KKN picture. Indonesia’s “weak” statecapacity and corruption control mechanismsand enervated political will are to a large butindeterminate and inadequately researchedextent a product of inadequately controlledforces in the international environment.Prominent among these are multinationalresource companies, foreign consumers ofmineral, energy and (mostly illegal) forestproducts and associated foreign governments.Construction, armament and no doubt many

other kinds of foreign companies and “their”governments are no doubt also important in aprocess involving continuous corruption of localcorporate cronies, politicians, state officialsand the military to grease the wheels ofinvestment, licit and illicit trade and otherbusiness dealings. The role of countries such asSingapore and Malaysia in providing safe havenfor Indonesia’s corporate criminals also needsto be mentioned in this context.

About one-third of Singapore's knownmillionaires are thought to be Indonesiannationals, many of whom have recentlyacquired Singaporean citizenship. In October2006 the US investment bank Merrill Lynchest imated that Indonesians based inSingapore—some of whom of courserepatriated funds “legitimately” to Singaporeduring the Asian crisis of 1997-98—own assetsworth $87 billion: substantially more than theIndonesian budget.[10]

The BLBI Scam and After

In the immediate aftermath of the Asian crisisthe chief New Order corporate, parliamentaryand bureaucratic actors resorted to KKN on amassive scale by in effect embezzling the hugerescue funds—IMF, Bank Indonesia andgovernment sourced—which were intended toreflate, restore and help reform the bankingsystem. As this predatory class, still led by theSuharto family and its chief corporate/bankingcronies, resumed the plunder-by-corruption ofthe Indonesian interior (to borrow Marx’sphrase), they were aided, abetted and joined bya widening circle of senior bureaucrats, andstate industry sector executives, together withthe “court mafia” comprised of judges,prosecutors and court officials, and police,together with military generals (many retired)as well as politicians and party officials.

Then, as decentralisation reforms took holdfrom 2001 and large new revenues flowedtowards provincial and regency coffers, local

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businesses and local-level officials, bothbureaucratic and elected, joined the KKN club.They soon began to operate in ways barelypossible under Suharto’s centralizingdictatorship, thus gravely sabotaging thepotential of special and regional (ordinary)autonomy to deliver long-delayed economicjust ice and a sense of effect ive localparticipation in Aceh, Papua and elsewhere.

Money politics between parliaments at alllevels, national, provincial and regional, andthe electorate, were complemented by moneyjustice and kleptocratic state administration aswell as corruption, illegal business dealing andextortion on the part of the military. Much ofthis was an old New Order (1966-1998) story,but in conditions of demokratisasi it was atonce less centrally regulated, much moretransparent—and still massive. Rarely can thefton such a scale have been so openly conducted.Buttressed before long by the $16 billion IMF-supplied credit to Bank Indonesia, BLBI(Bantuan Likuiditas Bank IndonesiaLiquidityCredit) set about a bank bailout in late 1997whose funding was misappropriated almosttotally by the crony banks of the leadingcronies of the old regime.[11] A derisoryf r a c t i o n o f t h e s e f u n d s h a s b e e nrecovered—much went to pay off foreign debtand to prop up (or, later, recover ownership of)bankrupt conglomerates.

In addition, Bulog (Badan Urusan Logistik, thenational logistics agency), including its povertyalleviation fund; Pertamina (PerusahaanTambang Minyak Negara--the state “oil miningcompany” or fuel and gas monopoly), and othergovernment statutory bodies continued to befair game for various scams and large-scaletheft and kick-back schemes, as before underSuharto.[12] The poverty which needed to bealleviated turned out to be the comparativepoverty of the well-heeled in the wake of theAsian crisis. Poverty intensification for thegeneral population was a feature of the post-meltdown scene, and it was generously helped

along by the masters of KKN.[13]

“ The poor are always with us”: Canal scene, Jakarta

In certain cases the transparency of reformasiwas painful for KKN practitioners, especiallyfor the only Suharto crony, Bob Hasan, and theonly Suharto child, Tommy, who went tojail.[14] But some foreign corporate playersalso found transparency tough. The US-ownedFreeport mining company in Papua, forinstance, having cemented its status in the1960s by massive, in effect, free, share issuesto Suharto foundations and cronies, paid offTNI (the armed forces) in various ways formany years, but then found itself required toconform with the US Foreign Corrupt PracticesAct. Hence it sought to reduce contributions tosenior generals’ bank accounts and other off-budget expenditure. The result was theunresolved (except by an Indonesian court)murder of two of its own employees in 2002.This was almost certainly engineered by itsgood friend and accomplice in Papuandispossession, the army.[15] But the USAttorney General, John Ashcroft, mindful of thepressing requirements of the war on terror,including the Bush administration’s own resortto torture and terror tactics in Iraq andelsewhere, and unmindful of the TNI’s ownmastery of terror over the decades, not least inPapua, eventually blamed the murders on thePapuan freedom movement, the OPM(Organisasi Papua Merdeka).[16]

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Violence, Corruption and the TNI

Such violence is no accidental or ancillary partof the KKN story. Systematic and large-scaleviolence enters the picture with Suharto’sassault on the Left and the mass killings of1965-66, accompanied as they were byimprisonment and forced labour for hundredsof thousands more, and the dispossession and“decitizenising” of the extended families oftapols (tahanan politik, political prisoners) andothers which followed. This ordeal for millionswas justified by a mendacious regime-propagated myth of the Left as a daemonicthreat to social order. The way was open to thepolitics (and economy) of the so-called “floatingmass” (massa mengambang) in which thepeople were truly weightless when it came topol i t ical or industr ia l inf luence andorganisation.[17] Thus the unrestrained (byeffective law or independent unions)exploitation of labour and the extra-legalenrichment of the First Family and its leadingChinese and pribumi (native) cronies couldproceed without serious legal, political,industrial or agrarian disturbance.

General Suharto was the architect of thesystem and its executor, and the corpses of1965-66 were a graphic reminder thatdissidence, resistance, or simply a Leftorientation, carried a heavy price. In Papua andAceh, where disintegrasi (“secessionism”) ofthe first kind identified above has been an issuefor much more than a generation, policiesleading to disintegrasi of the second kind(sosial) were actively practiced at the point of agun—exploitation without compensation onSuharto’s orders of local resources (copper andgold, as wel l as t imber) by complic i tmultinationals in the interests of associatedcronies and generals as well as foreignshareholders and consumers.[18] Localresistance to dispossession, impoverishmentand environmental despoliation based oncorrupt dealing was met with military andpolice “sweeping” and shooting, with jailing

and assassination. Resistance has persisted upto the present in Papua where an effectivepeace deal with Jakarta is still lacking.[19]

Despite the efforts of President AbdurrahamnWahid and a few other leaders under reformasi,the violent and derogatory myths of theSuharto era continued to flourish, togetherwith the Cendana Family billions, and thereconstruction of a viable Left oppositionlanguishes correspondingly.[20] The synergybetween KKN and La Violencia has beenoverlooked or slighted by those over-anxious tocelebrate the achievements of demokratisasi,or to insist in the face of much evidence to thecontrary that a benign transition is underway.Indonesian civil society remains lively butembattled and still struggling for realempowerment despite renewed media freedom.The reasons are not far to seek.

Intimidation of Civil Society

From the procured murder of the judge whosentenced Tommy Suharto to prison oncorruption charges in 2001 to the BIN (BadanIntelijen Negara—State Intelligence Agency)associated poisoning murder of Kontras (KomisiUntuk Orang Hilang dan Korban TindakKekerasan-- Commission for Disappearancesand Victims of Violence) founder and scourgeof the TNI, Munir, on or just after a Garudaflight to Singapore in 2004, the wages ofhonesty in civil society or the judiciary can bedeath. Straightforward military violence, as inthe 2001 assassination of Papua CouncilPresidium chairman and leader of Papua’s non-violent independence movement, Theys Eluay,by army special forces (Kopassus) is one issue.Another is military-protected or military-induced violence in support of KKN, such as therecruitment of so-called “false OPM” in Papuawho seem to have carried out the intimidatingmurders at the Freeport mine in 2002,[21] andmuch of the enforcement activity attributed topreman preman (gangsters).

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The NGOs and press alike must contend withthe hoodlum factor—wielded most notoriously,often with police or military complicity-- byleading Sino-Indonesian tycoon, Tomy Winata(Oe Suat Hong). In his long-running war withTempo magazine over a March 2003 storyconcerning a suspected arson in a huge textilemarket in Jakarta, the Tempo offices wereattacked by Tomy’s goons. (The invadersincluded members of then PresidentMegawati’s PDI–P party’s paramilitary youth,Young Bulls). Tempo’s editor (BambangHarimurti) was attacked by other thugs at aCentral Jakarta police station, and the house ofits co-founder (Goenawan Mohamad) wasconfiscated by pliable judges in the EastJakarta district court to cover a Winata libelsuit.[22]

Tommy Suharto Tomy Winata(TNI sleeve in view)

But TNI is not alone in protecting its owncorruption and other illegality violently, as thecase of Tommy Suharto makes clear. There isin effect one law for the big corruptor andanother law for the small one and the orangkecil (little person) in the slum or kampung.The difference is made by the winningcombination of money and violence. TommySuharto’s judges in his subsequent murder trialdid convict him, but gave him a considerablylighter sentence (15 years, eventually reducedto four with remissions) than his hired hitman.Imagine the feelings, let alone the calculations,of those sitting on the bench at his varioustrials, knowing also that Tommy had spent ayear on the run in Jakarta under militaryprotection in the lead-up to his murdertrial—and not forgetting that the former FirstFamily’s wealth, including his own, remainslargely untouched.[23]

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Under Yudhoyono

President Yudhoyono had made the campaignagainst corruption a centrepiece of his 2004election campaign, and in May 2005 told thechairman of his own Coordination Team for theElimination of Corruption (Tim Task Tipikor),Special Prosecutor Hendarman Supandji, ‘thatregardless of whomever was found to beinvolved in corruption, he should carry on withhis duties.’[24] However in May 2006Yudhoyono moved to drop all criminalcorruption charges against Suharto but wasforced to hold off temporarily in the face of apublic backlash. Nevertheless his supposedly“reforming” Attorney General, Abdul Rachman,former director of the Jakarta Legal AidInstiute (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum, LBH), soonafterwards succeeded in persuading an appealscourt to allow the criminal charges to bedropped in a $600 million corruption caseagainst Suharto family foundations on thegrounds of the ex-President’s (then highlycontroversial) ill health.[25]

Seriously pursuing the Suharto billions is justtoo difficult, dangerous and potentially self-incriminating for the post-Suharto elite,although Yudhoyono’s new Attorney General,Hendarman Supandji, has recently launched ac i v i l a c t i o n a g a i n s t t h e S u h a r t ofoundations[26], and the criminal case (a landscam) over which Tommy ordered a judge’smurder but for which he was eventuallyexonerated by the Supreme Court has alsobeen revived as a civil action.[27]

On the other hand, as I have explainedelsewhere, Tommy’s further fortunes infreedom received a large boost when no lessthan two of Yudhoyono’s cabinet ministers wentto bat for him in 2005. His multimillion-dollarMotorbike company account at Bank Paribas inGuernsey had been frozen on suspicion ofmoney laundering. Successive justice andhuman rights ministers for SBY,YusrilMahendra (whose own law firm figured

prominently in the affair) and Hamid Awaludin(also a popular suspect in the electoralcommission kickback scandal discussed below),between them not only swore that Tommy wasclean but opened a state bank account to(momentarily) receive the disputed millions.Neither has been charged with or required toexplain anything, although Hamid was droppedin the most recent cabinet reshuffle.[28]

Here is one key to KKN: money protectsexisting money; money restores lost money;money makes more money; money disarms,demoralizes or can be used to destroy theprotagonists of combating bad money. Violenceis the longest of the long shadows thrown byblack money, which is probably, one way oranother, most money in Indonesia. But moneyalone, including the lack of it, is also at the rootof the decay of civil society since the early daysof reformasi.

For instance the leading environmental NGO,WALHI (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia--the Indonesian Environmental Forum) suffersfrom serious skill and capability shortages,[29]quite apart from military intimidation of itsfield workers attempting to monitor illegallogging. The billions of rupiah thrown aroundby big corruptors in logging and timber casesspeak louder to many than fearless, well-informed monitoring and reporting.[30] On theother hand, such reformasi aktivis aktivis fromNGO and academic circles as were appointedto the KPU (Komisi Pemilihan Umum—NationalElections Commission) to organize the 2004national election and replace the partynominees who organized the 1999 election,proved unable to resist the lure of the KKN thatseveral of them had established their namesand careers by denouncing. They—apparentlyall eleven of the KPU Commissioners—pocketedkickbacks to the tune of tens of million dollarsin total, maintained “tactical funds” with whichto bribe BPK (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan,Supreme Audit Board) officials and signalledtheir new elite status in an elite manner. Only

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one of them has so far seen the inside of agaol.[31]

Both in the Centre and the regions, stalwarts ofcivil society in the legal profession havediscovered the indispensability of dividedloyalties. Lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, aleading figure in the crusading human rightsNGO, YLBHI (Yayasan Lembaga BantuanHukum Indonesia—the Indonesian Legal AidFoundation), induced a serious split in theorganization when he began taking briefs forTNI generals accused of gross human rightsabuses in East Timor.[32] In Papua severalhuman rights activists in cash-strapped localNGOs have apparently been advising theaccused in the Papuan logging scandal whichforced President Yudhoyono to take actionearly in 2005.[33] (Their efforts were not invain. Out of 137 police cases not a single oneresulted in a conviction, according to theJakarta Post.[34])

Hamid Awaludin (left) and Adnan Buyung Nasution

TNI and KKN Today

The President has not yet been heard tocomment about the collapse of the biggestsingle legal action of his anti-corruptionpresidency. Meanwhile the biggest singleIndonesian beneficiary of illegal logging inPapua—directly through the companies theycontrol and indirectly by extortion andfacilitation of log production and export byothers—is undoubtedly the President’s oldinstitutional home, the military. TNI is also thechief purveyor , provider , procurer ,protector—and provocateur—of violence inIndonesia, and especially now in Papua.

The army obviously occupies a crucial positionin KKN, although the naval role in illegal exportand trans-oceanic theft (of oil, for instance)needs to be borne in mind. TNI (includingretired generals’) business, even the ostensiblylegitimate business organized under so-calledfoundations (yayasan yayasan), operates in ashadow world barely subject to transparentaccounting or effective government regulationat all. There has been some window dressing

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under reformasi, including audits by big-nameaccounting firms,[35] but the situation isunlikely to change much despite the supposedreturn of these businesses to civil iancontrol.[36] The military are heavily involved,as sub-contractors, extorters, “protectors” (fora price), in all major multinational resourceprojects: Freeport, Papua (copper and gold);Caltex, Aceh (oil), and shortly, if not already,BP in Papua (natural gas) as well.

More than any other Indonesian institution(and many if not most Indonesian governmentministries and statutory authorities operate toa large extent outside effective political or legalcontrol) the military still contrive to operate asa state within a state, even though they havelost their appointive seat quota in parliamentunder reformasi.[37] This military quasi-state isoften almost literally at war with that otherlesser quasi-state, the police, over demarcationdisputes in the black economy. Some excellentpol ice work against homegrown andinternational jihad terror networks followed theBali bombings of 2002. But in October 2005President (and former Letjen) Yudhoyonoinvited TNI to renew its so-called territorialfunction, which was supposed to be endedunder reformasi, in the interests of the US-backed local war on terror.[38] And indeed fullmilitary relations with the United Statesresumed in early 2006, including IMET trainingand restored ability to purchase sorely neededspare parts and new military equipment—all inthe interests of the war on terror and of courseTNI’s own terrorizing habits.[39]

The lost cause of military reform: AgusWirahudikusumah (See Endnote 35)

The Anti-Corruption Charade

Because of Indonesia’s multiple governmentalsovereignties there is a large element ofcharade in the current President’s “war oncorruption” and all previous efforts so far tocome to grips with the Suharto legacy ofmissing billions, let alone the billionsdefrauded, embezzled and stolen “sinceSuharto” (a questionable phrase). Yudhoyonodenounces corruptors and calls for reform andprosecut ions , but moves to pardonSuharto—the fons et origo of contemporarycorruption—and fails to act decisively againstother “big fish” and patently rotten institutions.Police arrest, or mysteriously fail to;prosecutors prosecute, or mysteriously reduceor drop charges and emasculate their ownbriefs; judges convict and sentence, ormysteriously find innocence in the flagrantlybesmirched; offenders abscond or appeal andstay out of jail; appeal judges mysteriouslyreverse convictions or slash sentences—theKKN merry-go-round whirls on.

As has been archly observed, the wages of sinin the whirl can be seen in the car park at theAttorney General’s office, whose ownprosecutors as well as representatives of big-fish corruptors routinely follow judges aroundwith offers that are not often refused.[40] This

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is lavish compensation indeed for the shabbyjudicial treatment of the same prosecutors’occasionally convincing attempts to getplunderers convicted. In the end administrativesanctions are of comic opera severity, few arejailed, sentences are light and subject toreduction and prison conditions quite oftencommodious and always subject to negotiation,while little of the stolen trillions is everrecovered.

Meanwhile, as I have said, a criminal industryof bureaucratic, military, police, judicial,political, banking and business (includinginternational business) KKN players prospers—together with its attendant luxurious andhigh-handed way of life--at the expense of thetax system, the orang kecil, the honest middleclass and overseas aid donors and lenders. ButIndonesia’s First World aid donors andinstitutional lenders (World Bank/AsianDevelopment Bank/IMF) occupy an ambiguousposition. Through the Indonesian operations ofimmensely wealthy resource multinationalsthey are in effect major beneficiaries as well asfunders of the KKN system. And so are FirstWorld consumers of the fruits of unsustainableand illegal forestry and environmentally andsocially debilitating mining and oil and gasproduct ion. This makes F irs t Wor ldgovernments dubious allies of Indonesian civilsociety in the anti-KKN struggle.[41]

The civil society role in resistance to KKN,especially its more violent manifestations, isaltogether admirable—and of coursedangerous. There is a lso danger forgovernment officials--and not only judges.Reformasi Indonesia has lost at least twofear less prosecutors in susp ic iouscircumstances. In the light of the Munirpoisoning case, there might have been foul playat work to explain the sudden deaths in officeof zealous former Attorney General for GusDur, Baharuddin Lopa [died Riyadh, July 2001],who secured the Bob Hasan conviction, andPublic Prosecutor Muhammad Yamin [died Bali,

April 2004]. Unfortunately, their bodies werenever autopsied.[42]

KKN, Violence and the Presidency

Abdul Rahman Sa leh was Pres identYudhoyono’s replacement for the notoriouslycorrupt and pro-military former AttorneyGeneral under Megawati Sukarnoputri, MARachman. But under this supposed reformerthe official investigation of Munir’s killersstopped short of a fully serious attempt toinvestigate let alone charge the obvious high-up suspects in the case. These include formerBIN boss, LetJen (retired) Hendropriyono, andhis former deputy, Muchdi Purwopranjono.Pollycarpus, the BIN operative and Garudapilot found guilty of the murder by a lowercourt and exonerated mysteriously but quitecharacteristically by the Supreme Court, made35 mobile phone calls to Muchdi in the weekssurrounding Munir’s murder.[43] Muchdiclaimed these calls must have been received byassistants using his phone, but it has so far notbeen revealed in court that the number(s)dialed by Pollycarpus were actually secretextensions of Muchdi’s official number whichmust have been made specially available tohim.[44]

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Letjen (ret) Hendropriyono (left) and Pollycarpus

This is the status quo ante: never investigatemasterminds. It was established when only lowranking Kopassus soldiers were charged overthe Theys Eluay assassination in Papua during2001. President SBY mildly deplored the failureof Hendropriyono to testify before his ownFact-finding Team (TPF), but not the “Hendro”slighting of both Tim Pencari Fakta and Munirhimself.[45] SBY has never really responded tothe outrage generated by the failure of thepolice investigators or the AGO prosecutors toact on the well-grounded recommendations ofthis team to pursue the BIN connection.[46]However in September 2007 Attorney GeneralHendarman reopened the case againstPollycarpus on SBY’s orders and filed murderaccessory charges against former Garuda boss,Indra Setiawan.[47]

In January 2008 the Supreme Courtconstructively, if farcically, found Pollycarpusguilty of Munir’s murder for the second time,and sentenced him to 20 years. Even so, SBYhas still not released the full TPF report ormoved to bring the BIN role to centre stage,although prosecutors are hinting that theywill.[48]

Increasingly, a kind of real or phony war ofattrition is emerging between designated anti-corruption and transparency-promoting bodiesand other, usually more powerful, government

and judicial /legal agencies, as seen in the rowsduring 2004 between the BPK audit board andthe Presidential Secretariat, and between theCorruption Eradication Commission (KomisiPemberantasan Korupsi--KPK) and the seniorjustices of the Supreme Court, with thePresident himself (no less) attempting tomediate in both cases.[49]

Peter King is a research associate inGovernment and International Relations andconvener of the West Papua Project in theCentre for Peace and Confict Studies(http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/centres/cpacs/wpp.htm) (CPACS) at the University of Sydney.His recent publications include West Papua andIndonesia since Suharto: Independence,A u t o n o m y o r C h a o s ?(http://www.amazon.com/West-Papua-Indonesia- S i n c e -Suharto/dp/0868406767/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204557317&sr=8-1)(UNSWPress, 2004) and (with John Wing) Genocide inWest Papua? (CPACS and ELSHAM Jayapura,August 2005). Research began while the authorwas an affiliated fellow at IIAS (InternationalInstitute for Asian Studies), Leiden, in 2005.

This article, an expanded, updated and recastversion of ‘Korupsi dan Disintegrasi inIndonesia’ in Peter King and Lily ZubaidahRahim, eds, Asia This Century: ContestedPolities and Mentalities: a Special Issue ofPolicy and Society, Vol 25, No 4, December2006 is written for Japan Focus. Posted atJapan Focus on March 3, 2008.

Endnotes

[1] Korupsi, Kolusi dan Nepotisme[2] Based on analysis of an Indonesianelectronic clippings archive Gerry Van Klinkeninforms me ‘that disintegrasi leaps into thepopular vocabulary in 1998, stays there to the

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end of 2001, then drops away again as quicklyas it had appeared.’ Email, 19 July 2005[3] Edward Aspinall, The Helsinki Agreement: AMore Promising Basis for Peace in Aceh? EastWest Center, Washington, 2005, p 6[4] CIA estimate. The CIA’s estimate of GDP atpurchasing power parity (PPP) was $948.3billion for 2006. See ‘Indonesia’, CIA Factbook,2007[5] ibid[6] See Combating Corruption in Indonesia:Enhancing Accountability for Development,East Asia Poverty Reduction and EconomicManagement Unit, World Bank, October 2003[7] George Aditjodro,‘Suharto has gone – butthe regime has not changed’, in RichardHolloway (ed., English edn), Stealing From thePeople: 16 Studies of Corruption in Indonesiain four volumes. Book I: Corruption from Top toBottom, Aksara Foundation for the Partnershipfor Governance Reform in Indonesia, Jakarta,2002.[8] ‘Wiranto's Game Plan’, Tempo, 10 October2006. It is widely believed, in Tempo’s words,that Wiranto undertook to ‘guarantee the safetyof the Suharto family’ in the crisis of May 1998,but it seems the safety of the clan included itsriches.[9] Heedless of subverting Papua’s specialautonomy law, the military-dominated HomeAffairs Ministry has pushed hard for thecreation of new provinces in Papua with an eyeto installing retired military and formernationalist militia figures in power, ensuringTNI accesss to regional and special autonomyfunding and the setting up of new militarycommands. ‘Military presence in Papua underOTSUS’, Tapol Bulletin, No 187, July 2007[10] Bill Guerin ‘Indonesia seeks lost trillions inSingapore’, Asia Times Online, 2 May 2007[11] 'The ult imate cost of the bailout(which...went largely to the pockets of theowners of conglomerates) was far more,perhaps $50 billion, and this took the form ofan equity injection in the form of governmentbonds to the banks in question. The IMF willget all its money back, eventually, if not

already. It is the Indonesian general public thathas ended up footing the bill.' Ross McLeod(Editor, Bulletin of Indonesian EconomicStudies), email, 20 April 2006.[12] Such major scams of the Suharto period asthose involving power plant construction by theprivate sector to supply PLN ( PT PerusahaanListrik Negara -- the state electricity company),which have produced greatly inflated powercosts through inflated pricing, remainunresolved. See ‘Publicly GuaranteedCorruption: Corrupt Power Projects and theResponsibility of Export Credit Agencies inIndonesia’, ECA Watch website.[13] Akbar Tanjung, chair of the Golkar partyand Speaker of the DPR (Dewan PerwakilanRakyat—People’s Representative Council), wasconvicted in 2002 of embezzling Rp 40 billion(US$4.8 million) of Bulog funding from a food-distribution program intended for the poor.(The money was destined to fund Golkar’simpending election campaign in 1999.) He wassentenced to three years jail, but did not resignhis posts and the Supreme Court overturnedhis conviction in 2004 on the ground that hehad acted on then-President Habibie’s orders.See Gary LaMoshi ‘Tanjung acquittal: Verdictagainst reform’, Asia Times Online, 14February 2004[14] Tommy Suharto is dealt with below. BobHasan, a Sino-Indonesian Muslim convert anddominant figure in the plywood and timberindustry, was convicted of cheating the state ofUS$75 million in a scam involving satellitemapping of forest areas and given a six-yearprison sentence. See Richard Borsuk, ‘SuhartoCrony Stays Busy Behind Bars’, Wall StreetJournal, 13 August 2003. He has been releasedearly.[15] ‘What's Wrong with Freeport's SecurityPolicy?’ [Summary Report: ‘Results ofInvestigation into the Attack on FreeportEmployees in Timika, Papua, Finds CorporationAllows Impunity of Criminal Acts by IndonesianArmed Forces’], ELSHAM (Institute for HumanRights Study and Advocacy), Jayapura, 21October 2002

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[16] See Peter King, West Papua and Indonesiasince Suharto: Independence, Autonomy orChaos? University of New South Wales Press,Sydney, 2004, Chapter 5, ‘The TNI and Papua’.Seven Papuans on trial for the killingsprotested: ‘We're not the perpetrators! We onlyhave crossbows. We don't have guns!’ Thealleged leading conspirator, Antonius Wamang,was sentenced to life in prison. See ‘Papuatrials may continue without defendants.’Jakarta Post, 30 August and 8 November 2006.[17] Hilmar Farid, ‘Indonesia’s original sin:mass killings and capitalist expansion,1965–66’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Vol 6, No1, March 2000[18] See King, West Papua and Indonesia sinceSuharto, Chapter 5, ‘The TNI and Papua’.[19] East Timor made a transit ion toindependence in 1999-2002, while a peaceagreement for Aceh was signed in Helsinki bythe Free Aceh movement (GAM) and theIndonesian government in August 2005.[20] Witness for instance the state of schooltext books and the astounding survival, sevenyears after his “fall”, of the centrepiece ofSuharto anti-komunis mythology, the historicaldiorama inside Monas, the national monumentin central Jakarta. On text books see Gerry vanKlinken, ‘The Battle for History After Suharto:Beyond Sacred Dates, Great Men, and LegalMilestones’, Critical Asian Studies, Vol 33, No3, September 2001. Jalan Cendana in Menteng,Jakarta, is where the extended Suharto familycontinue to reside in undisturbed luxury.[21] SEben Kirksey and Andreas Harsono, ‘ Murderat Mile 63: Cutting the Network of AntoniusWamang’, Paper delivered in Panel 9: The Stateand Illegality in Indonesia at the EUROSEASConference, Naples, 12-14 September 2007.The objective of the murders was presumablyto remind the mining company that the USForeign Corrupt Practices Act is not a sufficientreason to slash the TNI multi-million dollarannual “take” from the Freeport mine.[22] Judges and Tomy Winata vs Tempo’,Laksamana.Net, 2 October 2003. NeverthelessBambang Harimurti, who had recently been

sentenced to a year in jail by the CentralJakarta district court, was remarkably coolabout the whole affair when I interviewed himin November 2004. He had still not seen theinside of a prison. In the end Tempo’s financialcollapse in the face of $26m. worth of libel suitswas averted by the Supreme Court early in2006. Goenawan Mohamad is still living in hisown house.[23] Roy Tupai, ‘Chronology of TommySuharto’s Legal Saga: From Playboy Defendantto Fugitive Murderer to Pampered Prisoner &Soon to Freedom’, Paras Indonesia, 19 August2005[24] Cited in Bali Update, #452, 9 May 2005[25] Peter Gelling, ‘Jakarta drops case againstSuharto’, International Herald Tribune, 12 May2006[26] ‘Indonesian lawyers fail to agree Suhartose t t lement ’ , Reuters , 4 September2007.‘Prosecutors are seeking a total ofUS$440 million of state funds in the suit, and afurther 10 trillion rupiah ($1.07 billion) indamages for alleged misuse of funds in one ofSuharto’s foundations.’[27] ‘Indonesian court to hear TommySuharto’s corruption case’, Straits Times, 12November 2007[28] Peter King, ‘Corruption at Indonesia’shighest levels: attempts at reform have largelyfailed’, The Australian Financial Review, 17August 2007[29] Arie Rukmantara, ‘ Walhi told to focus onhuman resources’, Jakarta Post, 17 October2005[30] ‘Environmentalists [in North Sumatra]receive death threats’, Jakarta Post, 16November 2005[31] ‘KPU Under Fire’, Tempo, 21 June 2005;‘Hamid Denies Involvement in KPU Scandal’,Jakarta Post, 29 September 2005. The NGOcoalition which blew the whistle on the KPU ina report to the KPK estimated that markups onthe acquisition of election materials causedlosses of US$41.6 million (Rp375 billion) to thestate. Phar Kim Beng, ‘ Indonesia's PeacefulPoll : How They Did It , Asia Times, 29

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September, 2004[32] ‘Munir Qui ts Legal A id Group’ ,Laksamana.Net, 5 December 2001[33] For a summary see John Wing and PeterKing, Genocide in West Papua? The role of theIndonesian state apparatus and a current needsassessment of the Papuan people, Reportprepared for the West Papua Project at theCentre for Peace and Conflict Studies,University of Sydney, and ELSHAM Jayapura,CPACS, Sydney, August 2005, Chapter 1[34] Of the 137 cases of illegal logginguncovered in Papua by the police in OperasiHutan Lestari 52 never went to trial; 13 weredropped for lack of evidence, while 18proceeded to trial but all defendants wereacquitted. Jakarta Post, 18 July 2006. A largeamount of equipment was also seized but itspresent whereabouts would be worthresearching.[ 3 5 ] T h e r e f o r m i s t g e n e r a l A g u sWirahadikusumah was appointed by Gus Dur tohead Kostrad (the TNI Strategic ReserveCommand) in 2001, but was sacked by thearmy high command within four months afterturning up a $22 million dollar embezzlementby his predecessor, Djadja Suparman. Themoney came from Mandala Airlines, which isowned by Kostrad’s Yayasan Dharma Putera.See King, West Papua and Indonesia sinceSuharto, Chapter 4, ‘The TNI in Business,Politics and Repression’, p 101[36] Lisa Misol, ‘High Time for the Governmentto Take Over All Military Businesses’, JakartaPost, 7 October 2005; Tiama Siboro, ‘MilitaryMay Retain Many Businesses’, Jakarta Post, 20October 2005[37] TNI’s treasured impunity includesimmunity from even Presidential direction. LikeGus Dur before him, and despite his retiredgeneral’s rank and constitutional status asCommander in Chief, SBY has trouble makinghis writ run in the army’s last open frontier,Papua. One of the sternest US critics of TNI’sact iv i ty in Papua, Congressman EniFaleomavaega of American Samoa was inducedto give his blessing to Papua’s very flawed

special autonomy in July 2007 following anhour-long session with SBY at Istana Merdeka.When finally allowed to visit Papua inNovember, accompanied by the Americanambassador and with Presidential blessing andguarantees of access to Papuan leaders and thePapuan capital, the event proved to be atruncated fiasco, as he made clear in a highlycrit ical letter to SBY, reproduced in‘Congressman’s disappointing visit’, TapolReport, 6 January 2008.[38] ‘Military Joins Bali Terrorist Hunt’, Tradeand Investment News, Coordinating Ministryfor Economic Affairs, 10 October 2005.The territorial function—supposedly purged ofSuharto period abuses--is still stoutly defendedin TNI circles. MajGen (ret’d) Kiki Syanakhricontends that the army remains popular andtrusted (approachable) or at least respected atthe grass roots by comparison with the police.“People do not fear them,” he says, and theyare “weak” and “loose” by comparison with thearmy. He strongly defends TNI’s record of intelcoups against terrorists in the past. Interview,Jakarta, 27 October 2004.In after-army life Kiki is a President-Director ofArtha Graha Bank, reflecting the army’s former20 per cent stake in it through its YayasanKartika Eka Paksi’s (YKEP). This bank has beenunder Bank Indonesia control since thefinancial crisis of 1998 but remains in the orbitof two Sino-Indonesian tycoons, A Guan[Sugianto Kusuma] and the notorious TomyWinata. Kiki was tasked in 2001 by then TNIcommander, Endriartono Sutarto, to overseethe civilianizing of the army’s business empire,or at least the restructuring of its yayasan. Healso still appears in the Masters of [East Timor]Terror book and website.[39] ‘TNI ordered to help in terror fight’,AsiaViews, 11 October 2005; ‘In considerationof Indonesia's strategic role in the fight againstterrorism, last November the US StateDepartment issued a waiver removing allremaining congressional restrictions on USmilitary assistance to Jakarta.’ Jakarta Post, 7June 2006

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[40] The car park check was suggested by ananonymous employee of the AGO itself. SeeNadirsyah Hosen, ‘This Is the War onCorruption, Mr. President!’, Jakarta Post, 3November 2004[41] Notoriously the World Bank, for good ColdWar (Washington) reasons, turned a blind eyeto a 30 per cent level of embezzlement in itsown loans to the Suharto government. Thisreinforced the profound structural problems ofreform under his successors. See JeffreyWinters, ‘Criminal Debt in the IndonesianContext’, Paper presented at the INFIDSeminar Jakarta, 3 July 2000.Less notoriously the Australian government in1993 under Prime Minister Keating (whofamously called Suharto “bapak”) licensed acasino on Christmas Island which turned over asurprising A$12 billion in the first two years. Itwas later shown to have been largely a handymoney-laundering instrument for the mostnotorious of bapak’s sons, Tommy, and hisassociates in Jakarta rackets. See ‘TheChristmas Party’ Four Corners, ABC, 1 July1992[42] Tempo, 23 November 2004[43] Roy Tupai, ‘Munir Murder Trial Flawed’,Paras Indonesia, 8 September 2005.Tupai points out that in 1998 Muchdi wassacked as Kopassus commander after Munirhelped to expose his role in the kidnapping andtorture of pro-democracy activists. Munir wasapparently working on TNI corruption in Acehat the time of his murder.[44] Presentation by Rachland Nashidik,executive director of Imparsial (and member ofYudhoyono’s Tim Pencari Facta), Centre forPeace and Conflict Studies, University ofSydney, 30 November 2007

[45] Hendropriyono was reported as askingwhat was so special about Munir's death. At aMay 2005 press conference, his lawyer, SjamsuDjalal, said: ‘And I'm sorry to say this, butwho's this Munir anyway that a presidentialregulation had to be issued? A lot of people die,but no regulations are ever made [for them].’James Balowski, ‘Spy Agency Implicated inActivist's Murder’, Green Left Weekly, 22 June2005[46] Police inaction has its rewards, as policeaction has its dangers. Many officers atNational Police Headquarters, including,apparently, Megawati’s Police Chief Da’iBachtiar, were lavishly bribed by suspects andaccused in the Rp1.2 trillion BNI (Bank NegaraIndonesia) embezzlement case of recent years,which saw the chief accused, businessmanAdrian Waworuntu, escape to Singapore for atime. (This was the most prominent of the BankIndonesia liquidity fund [BLBI] cases.) See‘Four-star Treatment’, Tempo, 1 November2005, and ‘Letters Real but Secondhand?’,Tempo, 22 November 2005[47] Stephen Fitzpatrick, ‘Garuda chiefs onpoisoning charges’, The Australian, 29September 2007[48] ‘Second Time Around’, Tempo, 29 January2008[49] Muninggar Sri Saraswati, ‘Yusril, Anwar inrow over graft case’, Jakarta Post, 18November 2005. Suharto’s half brotherProbosutedjo has admitted passing 16 billionrupiah to his own lawyer for bribing SupremeCourt judges in his appeal against a graftconviction concerning timber reforestationfunds. See Eva C. Komandjaja, ‘Probo's casehighlights corrupt system: Experts’, JakartaPost, 17 October, 2005