Indonesia: It's All In The Family

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When protesting students and street mobs finally drove Suharto, Indonesia's long-serving President, from office a year ago, he stood meekly to the side as his successor, B.J. Habibie, took the oath of office. Then Suharto slipped quietly from view. But the onetime autocrat has been far busier than most of his countrymen realize. In July 1998 the U.S. Treasury's attention was caught by reports that a large sum of money linked to Indonesia had been shifted from a bank in Switzerland to one in Austria. As part of a four-month investigation that covered 11 countries, TIME has concluded that $9 billion of Suharto money was transferred from Switzerland to a nominee bank account in Vienna. Not bad for a man whose presidential salary was $1,764 a month when he left office.

Those billions are just part of the Suharto wealth. Though the Asian financial crisis has trimmed the family empire considerably, the former President and his children retain a sizable fortune. TIME correspondents found indications that at least $73 billion passed through the family's hands between 1966 and last year. Evidence indicates that Suharto and his six children still have a conservatively estimated $15 billion in cash, shares, corporate assets, real estate, jewelry and fine art. The treasure was accumulated over three decades from a skein of companies and monopolies dominating vast sectors of the country's economic activity--from oil exports to incoming Mecca pilgrims--and from the Suhartos' interests in some 13,900 sq. mi. of Indonesian property, an area the size of Belgium.

When TIME published its 14-page report in Asia last week, it touched off shock waves. Suharto denies he has any bank deposits abroad and insists that his wealth amounts to just 46.9 acres of land, plus $2.4 million in savings, and he went on television on Friday to tell the nation he has done nothing wrong. His lawyers informed TIME that he intended to file suit for "false" charges that "defamed and humiliated" him. But an avid public savored details confirming suspicions of corruption and private profiteering that have swirled around the Suhartos for decades. On Friday, protesters demanding the former President be put on trial clashed with police. Attorney General Andi Muhammad Ghalib, who oversees an official inquiry into the family's wealth that has been creeping along inconclusively, told reporters, "I will set up a legal team to ask for confirmation from TIME." Amid dozens of newspaper, radio and TV reports, Indonesia's two leading magazines announced they are writing cover stories about the expose, which appeared just as Indonesia was preparing for the first post-Suharto elections in June.