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| Southeast Asia |
| Corruption costs Indonesia $2bn |
| 2004-06-19 |
Friday, 18 June, 2004, 07:42 GMT 08:42 UK By Rachel Harvey BBC correspondent in Indonesia Indonesia has lost $2.35bn in the past two years due to corruption, the attorney general’s office has said. The figure is derived from known cases investigated by the authorities - 108 cases have been pursued in the first four months of this year alone. Cases range from misuse of state funds by officials to simple bribery. Corruption is endemic in Indonesia, but with a presidential election looming, candidates are all promising to tackle the problem. Former president Suharto, who ruled with an iron fist for more than three decades, has been cited by the watchdog Transparency International as the most corrupt political leader in the world in the past 20 years. But legal proceedings against him have been suspended indefinitely because his lawyers say he is too ill to stand trial. I’d really love to see an independent second medical opinion concerning the putative ill-health of this maggot. He really needs to suffer a lot more than he is at present. Corruption is a prominent issue in the current presidential race. All the leading candidates have made fighting corruption a central theme of their campaigns. But none have been clear on how they will solve a problem which threatens to dent Indonesia’s chances of becoming a truly democratic and prosperous country. It is critical to examine fully the impact of corruption, especially on this sort of scale. While the usual ramifications regarding reduction in the quality of life and individual lifespan itself are obvious, there is a much more insidious undercurrent. Few people would argue that lower quality state services breed crime and other collateral predation upon the social structure. However, there is another more significant repercussion of such deprivation that is both ill-publicized and simultaneously of great significance. I refer you to Al-Qaida’s agenda for Iraq : The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their faith. Please read the above words carefully. They represent the most incredibly poisonous doctrine since Nazism, with which militant Islam has everything in common. Jihadist Islam views democracy’s frequent gift of economic prosperity as its dire enemy. Such good fortune has the much-feared potential for distracting its beneficiaries from any willingness to kill themselves in the course of committing MASS MURDER. Regarding improved living conditions as antithetical to spiritual uplifting is nothing short of unadulterated evil. It is akin to claiming that people should not bathe as they are destined to be one with creation’s dirt now and after. The concept of intentionally bringing poverty upon your religion’s adherents as a tool of controlling or steering them towards a destructive end is the most vile of moral bankruptcy. Returning to our main subject; Indonesia is being bled white by internal corruption. Centuries ago, this was not so much an issue, even though back then it still led to diaspora which taxed the economies of surrounding cultures. Now it is different. Deprivation and poverty have become intentional tools of those who advance international terrorism. Southeast Asia is rapidly becoming the new locus of al Qaeda. Imagine how easy it is to recruit from among those utterly bereft of any hope. This might seem to echo the self-inflicted psychosis of Palestinian mass murdering bombers and is, actually, not far from the mark. Arafat’s profound corruption has also retarded his people’s chances to succeed in a multitude of ways. Indonesia goes much further that any of Arafat’s puny craven dreams. Well beyond Ferdinand Marcos do we find Suharto in the lead as the all-time most corrupt head of state in recorded history. Here is the top ten list from Transparency International: Suharto: $15-35bn (Indonesia, 1967-98) Ferdinand Marcos: $5-10bn (Philippines, 1972-86) Mobutu Sese Seko: $5bn (Zaire, 1965-97) Sani Abacha: $2-5bn (Nigeria, 1993-98) Slobodan Milosevic: $1bn (Yugoslavia, 1989-2000) J-C Duvalier: $300-800m (Haiti, 1971-86) Alberto Fujimori: $600m (Peru, 1990-2000) Pavlo Lazarenko: $114-200m (Ukraine, 1996-7) Arnoldo Aleman: $100m (Nicaragua, 1997-2002) Joseph Estrada: $78-80m (Philippines, 1998-2001) Remember, al Qaeda wants its adherents to be poor as dirt. This increases their chances of successful indoctrination ten-fold. Such skillful mind control makes the communists look like a troop of Boy Scouts. Suharto and his ilk cause so many of Southeast Asia’s Muslims to be penniless. Do not fail to see the convergence of these plots, save at peril to your very life. Without a doubt, America is (and correctly so) The World’s Policeman™. At some point it will finally become crystal clear to all and sundry that, not only corrupt autocrats, but those encourage poverty, despair and pestilence are the progenitors of Islamist (and all other) terrorism. Without them to make a spiritual lever of misfortune and misery, Jihadist recruiting would take a nose dive. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that maggots like Suharto and Mobutu do not cross the finish line. Merely consider the slaughter of both Christians and Muslims alike in Sudan to realize the merit of simply disposing of governments that would breed up the very core of terrorism’s ranks. Iran and its endemic human rights abuse is the poster child for what we can expect from rogue nations currently pursuing regional dominance. Those of us who wish to avoid GLOBAL CULTURAL GENOCIDE had better begin to examine what sort of military and sub rosa intervention may be required to eliminate those who most expertly breed up international terror. |
| Posted by:Zenster |