As Woroni went to press this weekend, a potentially enormous political scandal was breaking in Indonesia following the publication of classified diplomatic cables from the United States Embassy in Jakarta.
As Indonesian Vice President Boediono made an official visit to Australia - including returning to his old workplace here at the ANU - Fairfax newspapers published documents leaked exclusively by the Wikileaks website which expose the serious doubts amongst US diplomats in Indonesia about the integrity of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, or SBY, whose re-election in 2009 was aided by his perceived determination to combat the corruption which is Wikileaks unleashes new wave revealing the bleeding obvious about Indonesian Politicsendemic in his country.
According to the cables, senior sources in the government told US diplomats that the President has leant on prosecutors and law enforcement to do favours for his political friends and harass his political foes, used the state intelligence agency to spy on his rivals and allowed his family members to use their political position for financial gains.
Specifically, the cables state that one of SBY’s top aides personally instructed the then Attorney General to stop the prosecution of Taufik Kiemas, the speaker of the Indonesian upper house for what one cable describes as his ‘legendary corruption during his wife’s tenure [as President]’. Taufik is the husband of Megawati Soekarnoputri, former President and current chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
First Lady Kristiana Herawati, known in Indonesia as ‘Ibu (Mother) Ani’, is reported to have strived along with other members of SBY’s family to profit from their political connections. One cable states that the Embassy’s informants detailed how ‘[her] family members have begun establishing companies in order to commercialise their family’s influence.’ Revealingly, she is also described as being ‘a cabinet of one’, being effectively her husband’s most important advisor.
SBY’s former Vice President Jusuf Kalla is also accused of paying ‘enormous bribes’ to win the chairmanship of Golkar, the country’s second largest political party and a partner in the President’s governing coalition. Kalla knows perfectly well that the public would be shocked to find out that he didn’t come to lead the party of Soeharto thanks to an orgy of bribery and favour-trading, and admits to giving large sums of money to Golkar delegates after his election. He denies that it was bribery, however, insisting it was merely reimbursement for their travel expenses.
These claims certainly come to Indonesia as a disappointment and to many people a surprise. SBY has generally managed to maintain an image as an honest leader who finds himself in opposition to the forces of corruption in the country. More cynical observers would say that it was only a matter of time before he was exposed as a crook and hypocrite.
All concerned figures have furiously denied other allegations, offering the typical response to allegations of graft: ‘prove it’. And indeed while the claims contained in the American cables remain unsubstantiated—and the Embassy’s sources cannot be without agendas of their own—it is probably too generous to give anybody the benefit of the doubt given the commonplace nature of this sort of corruption in the system.
This is all a terrible shame, and will further anger and demoralise anti-corruption campaigners and the general public in Indonesia, already weary as they are with news of the repulsive venality and greed of their ruling elite.
Guilty or not, the President’s reputation for integrity, already diminished by his recently increasing prioritisation of political expediency over ethical purity, will be seriously and irreparably damaged. Et tu, SBY?
