Asia Buzz: The Rule of Law

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Thursday, August 2, 2001

Megawati Sukarnoputri, the new President of Indonesia, is deep in the process of carefully choosing her cabinet. Considering all the factions that infest parliament, coming up with a lineup of ministers who are both qualified and who will appease the various cliques of lawmakers and dirty dealers is being described as her first leadership test.

Wrong! Megawati was presented with her first challenge last Thursday, the day her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid vacated the presidential palace. On that day, on a crowded street in a Jakarta suburb, an assassin gunned down Sayfuddin Kartasasmita. Sayfuddin is a judge, the head of the General Crime Division of the Supreme Court. He's also the judge that sentenced "Tommy" Suharto, the son of the former dictator, to 18 months' in jail for corruption last September. After being refused a presidential pardon, Tommy has been on the lam ever since, and none of Indonesia's policemen have been able to track him down.

Parliamentary politics aside, Megawati was able to force Wahid from power largely because she has the backing of Indonesia's military and police. Her first action as President should be to summon the leaders of all the country's security forces and demand that they apprehend Sayfuddin's killer -- and those who plotted and paid for the judge's brutal slaying.

Make no mistake. This was clearly a contract killing. A mob hit in the classic sense. But in Indonesia, as in many countries, more often that not, the mob is, or is under the direction of, rogue factions in the military and the police. They have the logistical ability, and the track record and experience, to pull off the job. If the hit man wasn't an out-of-uniform soldier or officer, there is little doubt his employers wear epaulets. Suharto and his family made the careers of many. There are debts that have yet to be paid.

Megawati must see that her generals flush out the killers and the conspirators, and that both the hit man and the ringleaders are brought to justice. Nothing less is at stake than the rule of law.