The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently > Friedrich Nietzsche
So Wikileaks finally deliver the big one and accuse SBY of “abusing power”.
The cables say Dr Yudhoyono has personally intervened to influence prosecutors and judges to protect corrupt political figures and pressure his adversaries, while using the Indonesian intelligence service to spy on political rivals and, at least once, a senior minister in his own government. They also detail how Dr Yudhoyono’s former vice president reportedly paid millions of dollars to buy control of Indonesia’s largest political party, and accuse the President’s wife and her family of seeking to enrich themselves through their political connections.
Read the full article here.
The revelations are certainly astonishing in their boldness and have not gone down too well in the corridors of power with the Presidential Palace accusing the Age of defamation:
"Jelas berita ini sangat merugikan reputasi Presiden dan merupakan pencemaran nama baik dan fitnah," kata Julian saat dihubungi detikcom, Jumat (11/3/2011).
Former VP Jusuf Kalla is taking the bribery allegations against him in his stride, however, casually acknowledging that he paid off Golkar delegates to win the chairmanship of Golkar, during a December 2004 party congress:
“Hampir semua partai juga begitu,” ujarnya. “Itu bukan rahasia lagi.”
Trying to wriggle his way out of a tight situation, Kalla comes up with one of the best excuses ever by saying that the payoff of the delegates could not be considered as corruption since the money “came out of my own pocket”.
Oh of course.
The allegations against former president Megawati are just as serious and accuse her husband of ‘‘legendary corruption during his wife’s tenure’’.
All juicy stuff.
But the world’s largest corruption case? Well, not quite.
That particular “honour” goes to the UN who devised a grand US$60bn oil-for-food programme, which was, and I quote here, “supposed to allow Iraq to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies with the proceeds of regulated oil sales, without breaking the sanctions imposed on it after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait”.
But what has this got to do with Indonesia? Well, you’ll find out if you read on.
From the very start, the US$60bn oil-for-food programme was fated to be an unmitigated disaster. There was so much money at stake and Iraq’s leader was that fine chap Saddam Hussein. And Saddam had a plan. Bribe. Bribe the whole damn world!
So Saddam decided to hand out “oil vouchers” to important politicians which the recipients could then redeem at a later date at huge profits (the vouchers allowed the owner to “sell on” a certain amount of Iraqi oil).
And as their names were not recorded on the vouchers, the politicians believed they were taking no risks and that they could never be traced.
And they would have pulled it off but for one thing – Bush invaded Iraq.
This was a problem as the Iraqis had been diligently keeping records of whom they had been giving the vouchers to all along.
Uh oh!!!!!
And then the Iraqis decided to make the information available for the whole world to see.
Uh oh!!!!!
On the list are about 270 people including UN officials, politicians and companies.
And it makes fascinating reading.
Two rather famous Indonesian names are also on the list.
Who are they? Well, you can find out here.
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