Tommy Soeharto Mulling A Presidential Run...

Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.

It is not like Indonesia does not have serious enough problems to deal with already. But, this kind of announcement is always mildly amusing and distracting enough to divert people's attention for at least a little while from the more serious problems, like increasing religious intolerance.

However, when you feel like the press is not giving you enough attention, then an absurd announcement will undoubtedly get you that attention. This is in addition to doing something sufficiently scandalous to get the gossip shows to show you a little love.

So, in this vein, Tommy Soeharto, the youngest and most ambitious of the former president's children has acknowledged that if political parties were interested in nominating him for the top job in 2014, then he would be more than willing to consider it. My main man for the 2014 nomination is actually a woman. I think Sri Mulyani Indrawati (SMI) would make an excellent reforming president. She would be up against it, but I reckon she has the ovarian fortitude to go hammer and tong against established interests like Aburizal Bakrie, and win.

But, I digress, this is a post about how funny it is that a convicted murderer and purveyor of graft reckons he is seriously a shot at a nomination. Tommy Soeharto was sentenced to 15 years in the slammer for his part in the assassination of an Indonesian Supreme Court Justice, Syafiuddin Kartasasmita. Kartasasmita was the judge that sentenced him in an earlier graft case.

What is truly funny is that Soeharto thinks he is even a chance at getting any votes. Let's face it, his most recent foray into the political arena was a crack at the Chair of Golkar which was a failure of super proportions; the man could not garner any votes. So, any political parties out there thinking that Tommy is an option, really need to consider taking a reality pill.

The man is tarnished goods.

It is time that someone got into Tommy's ear and told him some home truths, "Son, you are a convicted murderer, you have been convicted for being corrupt, you are no shot at political office, you are so tarnished as a political entity that we could not sell your candidacy to people who were all deaf, blind and dumb. Sorry mate, but even those people who could not hear, see or talk the sorts of evil that you are about could still not be convinced to vote for you!"

Is Tommy Soeharto a Murderer?

Tommy Soeharto (aka Hutomo Mandala Putra) has decided that he needs to sue an Indonesian magazine for printing a phrase that in essence says, "Tommy Soeharto is a convicted murderer". The magazine, Garuda",  published the alleged offending phrase in December 2009.

The problem as Tommy sees it is that the article was about his business interests in a resort in Bali, and therefore there is no correlation with any previous actions of his. I thought that "Garuda" was the in-flight magazine that you get when you fly with Garuda.

It would seem that Tommy and his legal representatives have forgotten that he is in fact a convicted murderer. He did ten years for the premeditated assassination of a Supreme Court judge. This, if I am not mistaken, is a fact of life; a fact of Tommy Soeharto's life that he cannot escape.

Nevertheless, Tommy seems to think that he deserves a public apology, and that the apology should be published in a national newspaper. Perhaps at the same time he can instruct his lawyers to place a public apology in the same paper noting his remorse over his criminal activities, including an apology to the family of the judge, Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, who he ordered murdered for having the courage to sentence Tommy Soeharto to prison for breaking the law; graft I believe. If not, then Tommy should take his lawsuit and shove it where the sun don't shine. As a matter of fact he should just take his frivolous little suit and shove it where the sun don't shine.

To be perfectly honest, the title of murderer should, and must, follow Tommy wherever he goes.

The original news on this one comes from Detik (in Indonesian).

Indonesia "135 Million" vs. Tommy Soeharto "0"...

The most recent decision in a Tommy Soeharto related case has seen him lose some USD 135 million. This should make a significant dent in his financial position. I am not sure that it is enough to push him to the brink of bankruptcy or destitution, but it should be felt (hopefully it will be felt!).

The Supreme Court finally overturned itself and decided for the Indonesian government in the long-running PT Timor Putra Nasional case. The company, PT Timor Putra Nasional, was a fraud from the start. The company was established with a view to producing a national car by a national car maker. However, the company did nothing more than import cars from South Korea and re-brand them. It was a fraud because the company was benefiting from subsidies and other facilities because it was creating a national industry that was intended to supply jobs to Indonesians and to move away from the reliance on car imports.

In contrast, as hindsight tends to be 20/20, the reality was that this was nothing more than another venture from a Soeharto child designed for personal enrichment under the protection of the iron-fisted rule of a dictator, who just happened to be Tommy's father.

The case went back to the Supreme Court because the Ministry of Finance presented two new pieces of evidence that were not presented at the earlier trial proceedings. These two pieces of evidence were letters from Tommy and the PT Timor Board of Directors guaranteeing payment to the government. This decision, according to Nurhadi, spokesperson of the Supreme Court, ends the appeal process. The decision is final.

An earlier Supreme Court decision in this case had awarded all the assets held by Bank Mandiri to Tommy with any interest that had accrued while the case was being heard.

The case was all over the place for so many reasons. It started with PT Timor defaulting on loans of some IDR 4.05 trillion during the 1997-1998 financial meltdown. In 2003 the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) stepped in and took over the assets and managed them through to an eventual sale. For reasons only known to IBRA its due diligence mechanisms failed to uncover that Tommy headed up the company, PT Vista Bella Pratama, who they sold the PT Timor assets to for a heavily discounted IDR 444 billion. This was a pretty significant return on the original investment for Tommy.

In legal moves in 2008, prosecutors argued that the deal had to be illegal because Tommy controlled both entities. The suit claimed the difference between the two amounts. The case was settled out of court with the government taking over all of PT Timor's assets and the IDR 4.05 trillion debt.

The Supreme Court has seemingly relied on this settlement and the new evidence to overturn the earlier decision they reached in the previous hearing of this case.

It remains to be seen as to whether this is some sort of seminal moment in the pursuit of ill-gotten wealth by the Soeharto clan. However, this clearly is a significant victory for the government.

Prisoner Transfer Agreements -- Australia and Indonesia...

The purpose of a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) is to allow foreign nationals incarcerated overseas to serve out the remaining portion of their sentence in their home countries. A PTA between Australia and Indonesia is something that has been in the pipeline for a while. If you are an Australian or an Indonesian incarcerated in a foreign prison, then that pipeline has been very long to date, and would seem to be a little longer still before there is any light at the end of this pipeline.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marty Natalegawa, has admitted as much. Natalegawa is a talented young diplomat who in a rapidly rising career leading to his appointment as FM held key ambassadorial posts in the UK and at the UN. He is a very intelligent man who is economical in his choice of words and rarely misspeaks. So, when he speaks it is probably worth paying attention to.

So, when Natalegawa said to the Australian Associated Press (AAP) that the negotiations for a PTA had not stalled, but rather taking time as a consequence of Indonesia being new to the PTA game, then that is where the game is at. The PTA will impact on the lives of those prisoners who have not been sentenced to death in an Indonesian court. Unfortunately, for those Australians on death row there is zero chance of them being repatriated to Australia to serve out the remainder of their respective sentences and executed.

However, a PTA will potentially permit the likes of Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence to be returned to Australia to serve out the remainder of their custodial sentences in an Australian prison.

The devil is in the detail of a PTA. And, this is where negotiations have slowed to a trickle in the very long pipeline that Natalegawa has alluded to. For example, Indonesia has taken a very strong public international stance on drugs and drug smuggling. Therefore, there are quarters within the Indonesian community that are reluctant to include drug smugglers on the list of prisoners who can be returned under a PTA. There is a fear that Australia does not deal with drugs as harshly as they do in Indonesia. And, they are right, we do not execute people period. That fear is that Corby and Lawrence would be returned to Australia under a PTA and then released shortly after their return.

The details are likely to include specific conditions on how much time is to be served in Australia prior to a release. The difficulty here is that Indonesia works on a remission system where prisoners sentences are cut each year, sometimes twice a year, on religious / national holidays for good behaviour. In contrast, the Australian system works on a head sentence and a non-parole period. Ultimately, the same amount of time will conceivably be served under both situations but these are the sorts of details that need to be hammered out before an agreement can be reached.

Another critical issue still to be agreed is how much time prisoners will be required to serve before becoming eligible for a PTA return to their home country. There have been suggestions that Australians serving time in Indonesian jails will have to do almost 3/4 of their sentence before becoming eligible. However, this is unlikely, assuming those on the Australian side of the debate are knowledgeable and well-informed on the Indonesian system. A person convicted in Indonesia is likely to only do 3/4 of their original sentence, and in all likelihood less than 3/4, with remissions for good behaviour and the like.

The classic example here is none other than the son of the former president (dictator), Tommy Soeharto. Tommy was convicted of a little graft and then the subsequent premeditated murder for hire of a Supreme Court justice. The man ended up doing about 2/3 of his original sentence.

So, in that regard a PTA might not make a lot make a lot of sense for most Australians incarcerated in Indonesia. It is also unlikely that the 3/4 of the sentence demand will be met.

It would seem that a PTA will become a reality in the future, but how far into the future remains to be seen.

Corby and Indonesian Independence Day

Indonesian prisoners not on death row get to avail themselves of a generous remissions system that allows for up to six months to be sliced off your sentence twice a year. Unfortunately, last year Corby missed out on the remissions because she was caught in possession of a mobile phone. However, this year she has had no such infringements of the rules and is reportedly in line for a three-month remission.

In the grand scheme of things a three-month remission on a 20-year sentence does not seem much. However, over the years these remissions add up. If one needs any proof just ask Tommy Soeharto who managed to serve just over half of his 15-year sentence for organizing the murder of a Supreme Court judge. It is interesting that Corby gets 20 years for smuggling some weed and Tommy only gets 15 years for the premeditated killing of a man. This is another post topic I guess.

The three-month remission remains a recommendation at this stage. Generally, though one remission recommendations are made it is just a matter of going through the motions to formalize them. There is nothing to suggest that Corby will be denied the recommended remission.

Corby has seemed to be struggling of late on both the emotional and physical fronts. I have written about this in other posts elsewhere in this blog. So, the idea of having three months shaved off your sentence should be good news for her and her family.

I imagine this is what life will be like for Corby for the next few years, rolling from one remission to the next.

Indonesia's Rich List

With pending recessions throughout the world and economic hardships facing many people, it is with that in mind that I make this post. The most recent edition of Globe Asia, June 2008, is a Special Edition focusing on Indonesia's 150 richest people.

The net wealth of the 150 richest has risen from USD 46.6 billion to USD 69.3 billion with an average wealth rising from USD 311 million to USD 488 million and the average age of the list has risen from 43 to 44.

The most obscene, yes obscene, mover on the list is the now Coordinating Minister of Peoples' Welfare, one Aburizal Bakrie, who has seen his family's wealth jump from a meagre USD 1.05 billion to a much more staggering figure of USD 9.2 billion. Much of this is the result of growth in the energy sector and the demand for commodities. Yet, it is worth noting that he also has extensive interests in property and telecommunications. Why is this obscene? He is the Coordinating Minister of Peoples' Welfare and his welfare is so much better than everyone else's. I do not begrudge rewards for people who work hard and I am sure that he makes his contributions to charity and the like.

Nevertheless, to see such a huge jump in wealth while the people of Sidoarjo continue to be shuffled about from one place to another and never being paid the compensation that they are due for the catastrophe that is the mud flow, seems to me to be just plain wrong. By most accounts one of the Bakrie family companies is responsible and the Presidential Regulation seems to suggest that the Bakrie family company is to blame and has apportioned blame to them (whether a Presidential Regulation can do this is a different argument for a different post). Yet, it seems that the Bakrie's are having trouble meeting the compensation payment schedules as mandated under the Regulation.

I have to say this is obscene because the man and his family are making their wealth predominantly exploiting Indonesian resources, natural and human, yet despite assurances to the contrary, do not seem to be able to make reparations to those that have suffered in the Bakrie Family's pursuit for cash!

The other notable entry for my mind on this list is Hutomo Mandala Putra, or Tommy Soeharto, at No. 61 with a net worth of USD 253 million. This is not bad for a fella who is allegedly corrupt, who is a convicted felon as a result of his ordering the assassination of a Supreme Court judge hearing one of his cases, and failed rally driver (don't know why the last one is important in terms of wealth but what the hey). If there is anything positive to say about the Soeharto children it is that the rich list clearly highlights they are no longer holders of influence and riches like they once were. However, maybe all the wealth is still stashed away overseas in secret bank accounts -- my guess is that the family will always be comfortably filthy rich!

There will be more to follow on this rich list and what it means as I see it (not that any of you care how I see it -- it's my blog so I can do what I want, right?)