Indonesian president to discuss Soeharto's wealth with Zoellick

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Xinhua

Indonesian president to discuss Soeharto's wealth with Zoellick
www.chinaview.cn 2007-09-19 17:50:47

JAKARTA, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono plans to meet World Bank chief Robert Zoellick to have talks on the alleged illegal wealth of former president Soeharto in the sidelines of the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York.

The meeting plan is related to the UN initiative to help developing countries recover fund embezzled to other countries by their corrupt rulers.

"President Yudhoyono is slated to meet the World Bank president to seek explanation what they (the United Nations and World Bank) plan to do about it," Foreign Minister Hassan Wirjauda told reporters here Wednesday.

The president will visit New York on Sept. 22-26.

The UN's drug and crime arm and World Bank have teamed up for the so-called Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative.

A related UN document puts Soeharto on the top list of ten most corrupt leaders. The former army general is suspected of embezzling the estimate of 15 billion to 35 billion U.S. dollars when he ruled in 1967-1998.




Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/19/content_6754783.htm

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Robert Zoellick

[Judi Lynn]

1. Suharto's ( Soeharto's) Wikipedia link:

~snip~
Political purges
Between 300,000 and one million Indonesians were killed in the mass-killings following the arrest of PKI members in Suharto's cabinet on October 6, 1965. Both the military and auxiliaries from conservative Muslim, Catholic, Hindu and secular nationalist militias conducted the killings. Though most communists were identified by locals, the CIA is known to have supplied the Indonesian military with a list of 10,000 suspected communists. Ironically, a CIA study of the events in Indonesia assessed that "In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century..".<22>

It must also be noted that, in addition to the CIA, British and Australian intelligence were well aware of events as they transpired.

Time Magazine presented the following account on December 17, 1966 : "Communists, red sympathisers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves."

"The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travellers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies."

Amongst the worst affected areas was the island of Bali, where PKI had grown rapidly prior to the crackdown. On November 11 clashes erupt between PKI and PNI, ending in massacres of PKI accused members and sympathizers. Whereas much of the anti-PKI pogroms in the rest of the country were carried out by Islamic political organizations in the name of jihad, the killings in Bali were done in the name of Hinduism. Bali stood out as the only place in the country where local soldiers in some way intervened to lessen the slaughter.

In December the military proclaimed that Aceh had been cleared of communists. Simultaneously, Special Military Courts were set up to try jail PKI members. On March 12, the party was formally banned by Suharto, and The pro-PKI trade union SOBSI was banned in April.

With the justification of denouncing Chinese communism, Suharto not only closed communist-leaning parties, but also extended his reach toward all Chinese Indonesian parties and all aspects of Chinese Indonesian socio-culture. Suharto effectively stripped Chinese Indonesians of power, banning them from politics and the military. He championed forced assimilation policy against Chinese Indonesians so that they would forget their ties to China. This policy brought forth many anti Chinese legislations. Suharto passed and enacted very discriminatory citizenship laws, such as forcing Chinese Indonesians to re-register themselves as Indonesian citizens by renouncing their alleged Chinese citizenship regardless of the validity of the Indonesian citizenship they may already have. He denounced Chinese cultures and banned Chinese characters and literature. Allegedly, Suharto was also the mastermind of the 1965 slaughter of millions of Chinese Indonesians, purportedly to eradicate the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto