Dodgy photo, dodgy handshake, dodgy business; Yudhoyono pardons Suharto!

After breaking so many of his election promises regarding freedom of speech, fuel prices, etc. (see our report: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – fraud, cheat, thief and liar?), after watching his country slide further down the slippery road to civil war by presiding over the unconstitutional inappropriately named “anti-pornography act” which de facto imposes many parts of sharia law on non-Muslims and strips them of their cultural rights, after insulting all that is decent in the world by refusing to accept any liability for his country’s human rights violations in their nasty 27 year occupation of East Timor, after presiding over spiraling inflation and unemployment, after falling out with most of Indonesia’s regional governors over reneging on greater autonomy for them. You would think Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, if he were earnest about his job, would have had enough of plummeting public opinion which is likely to make him the least popular ruler since Suharto; but you would be wrong of course and how. In an almost certain act of keeping a promise to Suharto and the Golkar party to help him get elected, President Yudhoyono has gone and made himself the enemy of every decent Indonesian and billions of cheated tax payers around the world whose governments provided aid to Indonesia during the Suharto era; he has gone and pardoned Suharto of any corruption crime which millions were waiting for him to stand trial over.

While the Australian and other governments pour their tax payers cash to this day as aid into Indonesia, where no doubt most will end up in corrupt officials’ pockets, the alleged architect of Indonesian corruption with his phony institutions previously milking billions of dollars of overseas aid money into his family’s bank accounts, Suharto has just got off Scott free. While many foreigners will likely rightly say “Why the hell should our country send good money after bad to Indonesia when they just gave up the legal process and right to get the money Suharto extorted before?” But then of course Yudhoyono has always been seen as a close Suharto supporter, so there should be no surprise. After all Indonesia is a “unique” kind of democracy, one where the electorate are so uneducated (many if not most leaving school before they are 12) they can not understand the current economic problems were created under Suharto in the first place and therefore many have mistaken beliefs Suharto was actually much better than he was, so under the thumb (being told who to vote for by the village leaders), so gullible (being offered money to vote by political parties who more often than not never pay up afterwards and have any trouble makers jailed under Indonesia's nasty, pathetic, wholesale abused criminal libel law) that his election for many was clearly engineered by Suharto and his political party Golkar; and now we apparently know the price ticket attached to getting the presidency. Indonesia is a unique democracy all right; don't believe what George Bush tells you, that democracy in itself is the answer to all ills. Although Indonesia may not suffer from fraud at the polling booths and counting halls, although it may not suffer from government sponsored obstruction or intimidation of voters to stop them voting, the Indonesian system is none-the-less as bent as it gets.

Of course Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s timing was “perfect”. It seems Suharto’s impending corruption trial with the universal cry of “get our money back” was put off one way or another until Suharto one day inevitably fell ill enough for Yudhoyono to keep his promise. Yudhoyono waited until Suharto regained consciousness after his operation to make his presidential decision which he tries to sanctify with the wobble it was “based under law”. Why Yudhoyono did not make his decision before Suharto regained continuousness is all telling. Naturally many people in Indonesia are rightfully livid at this presidential act, although the Suharto family are openly very happy they will never have to give their amassed fortunes back and have actually publicly thanked Yudhoyono for his pardon; how touching. Attempts to reverse the president’s “decision” are failing despite the fact Yudhoyono has tried to mitigate his untenable act by saying he will let the law makers decide. Bali BS asks if those are the same law makers who are also "devoted" to Suharto? Early signs this is all wobble to try and brush what Yudhoyono did under the carpet comes with news that even though the Indonesian Corruption Commission has had it pointed out to them they the power to overturn Yudhoyono’s decision in such matters, they are refusing to get involved; which is no surprise to us (read our report about these governmental frauds, the KPK Indonesia)!

Is it totally un-coincidental that Indonesia now seems more Suharto like than ever? Corruption at an all time high, press and other freedoms briefly enjoyed at the beginning of democracy after the Suharto reign now stripped away, the police and their colluding judiciary only answering to Indonesia’s powerful, Suharto friendly families, etc. The only difference seems to be adjustments to cover and superficially appease the rise in militant Islam. But with Indonesia clearly having no plans to scale down its large, albeit seemingly real combat ineffective armed forces, whose historical petulant pleasure and provision has been to massacre unarmed civilians, Bali BS believes the Mini-Me of Indonesia, President Yudhoyono has all the answers or rather solutions he needs. Solutions not for winning votes or ensuring civil and human rights, but for keeping Indonesia what Suharto always did, without a choice and without a voice. Bali BS believes the Suharto clan are back in power and intend to keep it that way. It almost seems by Yudhoyono’s acts that they want civil disorder to follow, not another election. Of course, if there is civil disorder, the army can be called in and martial law declared followed by another military dictatorship; mark our words!

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