Have You Changed, Mr. President?

IN A QUANDARY. As the supreme commander, pressure is piling on Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's shoulder to take more decisive act towards the perpetrators of the defamation plot of KPK executives.

After a prolonged time of silence, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has finally announced his ruling on the rift between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Police; yet his approach on the case by pronouncing such vague statement raises an even bigger question mark for Indonesians: is this really the man who once astonished Indonesian people because of his industrious efforts in fighting graft?

Indonesians’ concern is very much understandable: for a president whose efforts in eradicating corruption in Indonesia had earned him a worldwide recognition and a landslide victory during the last presidential election, so far his response to the rift between the Police and KPK fell very short from the expectations. And that vague statement of his also doesn’t feel like the solution to our apprehension.

Besides, before the statement itself, his previous silence about this KPK case has raised disputes already regarding his consistency in fighting corruption–many even pointed out the possibility of his involvement in the plot to undermine the once larger-than-life commission as his name was repeatedly mentioned on the wiretapping tape.

The election few months ago was my first election experience and in fact I was one of his supporters who wholeheartedly marked his face in the ballot during the last presidential election, but so far his undecided stance towards this case has let me down. I see his previous statement as no sign of a sturdy president who once impressed me by his valiant act to throw his own son’s father-in-law to incarceration; it seems more like a statement that comes from an irresolute general whose indecisiveness seems likely to disappoint his citizens who have put many hopes in his shoulder.

If Yudhoyono really wants to fulfill his past promise of pushing a bureaucratic reform in Indonesia, there is no better target to be set as his priority than the National Police and the Attorney General Office (AGO) –and after all their disgraces have been made public because of this case; this seems to be the perfect moment. In fact, the reputation of Indonesian National Police and Attorney General Office have been very bad already among Indonesians –so bad that I recall that in one of the classes which I attended, my lecturer even laughed off the feasibility of the government’s plan to reform the severely dilapidated bureaucracy of Indonesian National Police and the AGO.

“They are just too bad and that reformation thing is just a waste of the government state budget; they should do revolution (to the police and AGO) and not reformation,” she said. “Do you know the difference between revolution and reformation? Revolution means dissolving the whole institution and building a brand new one afterwards.”

Yudhoyono should have tackled such concern and implemented his actions toward those ramshackle institutions long time ago. And after this case occurs and people’s confidence towards the National Police and the AGO has plunged to its lowest level, many people –including my lecturer– may be wondering: why he has still not taken any serious act yet to those institutions?

But I soon realize that instead of being recognized as a frontline general who leads his army to confront enemies at the vanguard, Yudhoyono is renowned as a thinker general; a brilliant strategist who is expert in planning a strategy so his army can come out victorious in the end.

Because of his recent indecisiveness, I am starting to wonder if his brilliant strategy has successfully deceived me to give my vote to him. Was Yudhoyono really the person who threw Aulia Pohan to jail? Or actually it was KPK who did it and thus should deserve the credit; while Yudhoyono actually did nothing and just let him jailed as part of his strategy because he knew that freeing him at that time would surely diminish his popularity among us and hurt his chance of winning the re-election?

It doesn’t make sense to me because if throwing his own son's father-in-law to jail would be so easy like that, then why can’t he do the same thing to those high-rank police officers whose involvement in the plot to defame two KPK deputies proved to be obvious?

Only Yudhoyono himself knows the answer. It has been merely a month since he was inaugurated as our president, but his once flawless legacy of combating corruption in Indonesia is now in doubt already as he still stands unmoving albeit the KPK is being continually undermined.

Mr. President, puzzling statement like the one you said few days ago is not the thing needed to regain the trust of Indonesians; what is more necessary is your concrete and decisive action in helping the KPK and giving punishment to the case’s culprits. By doing so, you will return to the track that will lead you to an Indonesian president whose legacy of fighting corruption will be remembered in many years from now. And by doing so you can also prove to us that you are still the same Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono whose face on the ballot we marked wholeheartedly during the last presidential election.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Thursday, December 3 2009

Deception Point.

POKER FACE. Once devoted himself to serve the people and the nation, now National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri turns out to be the nation's public enemy as Indonesians find out about his evil plot to slander the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) executives.

I just can’t stop reading newspapers’ headlines recently. I have read spellbinding stories whose storylines contain one of the most complicated conspiracies in the world’s history such as Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, Adolf Hitler’s operation Valkryie, or Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme, but watching television and reading newspaper these weeks makes me wonder about changing my notion of considering those stories as mind-gripping.

In other words, for me those storylines are nothing but boring compared to the high-tense thriller that I am following right now.

If you are reading this at the moment and actually you don’t really understand what is going on in this fierce slugfest between Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Indonesian Police, I highly suggest you to read yesterday’s newspaper archives or watch television more frequently to comprehend the chronicle.

In fact, this saga is very interesting –so interesting that I think someone should write book or make movie about this whole thing. As the story grows more and more astonishing each day, this may be the world’s most enthralling drama in decades and therefore it should not be missed.

Like Hollywood movies, the rift between the police and KPK put its spectators on the edge of their seats as the saga goes beyond its initial means. New characters whose role was proved to be significant on the story’s plot are introduced every week. Initially the battle only involved high-rank police officers against their enemies, the anti-graft commission deputies, but as now the case has broadened it unexpectedly drags many popular names like Adnan Buyung Nasution, Abdul Hakim Ritonga and M.S Kaban into the fuss –even our president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was said to have his hands involved in this highly controversial case.

But you don’t have to be a smart person to realize that there’s definitely something wrong with this case –even an undergraduate student like me can comprehend the reason why huge public resentment towards the Police and the government exists at the moment.

We saw on the live television broadcast already how National Police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri and National Police chief of detectives Susno Duadji performed during the hearing in front of the House of Representatives. Those bandits seem to cover themselves with the hero mask: the way they convincingly persuaded the House of Representatives and tried to regain the trust of million Indonesians who watched their live performance, the way they played the role as if they were on the same side as the KPK’s in enforcing the law and corruption eradication in Indonesia –it was simply a sort of performance you would expect from Oscar-winning actors.

Thanks for all the seemingly perfect acting dear police officers, but only donkey falls to the same hole two times. Indonesian people are no donkeys; now with Ari Muladi and Williardi Wizard have unfolded your evil thoughts to frame the KPK leaders and shown to us how dilapidated your organization actually is, we just cannot have faith in you anymore.

We can also recall that the KPK tape have clearly unfurled Anggodo’s crucial role on the plot to undermine the once larger-than-life commission. Surprisingly, at the moment he still wanders freely as he was released by the police with their vague argument of ‘not sufficient evidence’.

The villain is well ahead of the good guy by now since the justice is only yet to be erected –and the villain will still be in this vantage point if culprits like Anggodo, Susno Duadji, and Bambang Hendarso Danuri are still free out there and far from being locked-up in the place where they truly deserve to be in.

Indonesians were presented with numerous shrewd trickeries already in this saga. But the story is far from over as many vital characters like Yulianto and Yuliana Oeng are still hiding behind the curtain and waiting to be introduced to the stage. At some point, the show will be crammed with its entire performers and the storyline becomes more puzzling than ever. Just then it will be very interesting while we can only wonder what kind of ending this story will offer.

Who will win? Beware crocodiles; you are not playing the good guy role here. And storylines in Hollywood movies are famous for the concept of: at the end of the story, it’s the good guy who always prevails.