News reports in the past week have undoubtedly been dominated by the investigation results of the House of Representatives’ special inquiry committee into the high-profile Bank Century case that implicates the country’s top-ranking officials, mainly those in the financial sector.
The political uproar – visibly a tug-of-war between the parliament and the coalition of the ruling government – reached its climax Wednesday when the House plenary meeting gave a resounding vote of no confidence to the government’s November 2008 decision to bail out the then troubled Bank Century.
A total of 325 legislators from the Golkar Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), plus a defector from the National Awakening Party (PKB), supported calls for legal measures against those responsible for the bailout, including Vice President Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati. Both Boediono and Sri Mulyani – in their capacity as Bank Indonesia governor and Finance Minister at the time of the 2008 bailout – were blamed for authorizing the bailout that increased tenfold to Rp 6.76 trillion (US$716 million) from the initial estimate.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the two most-frequently mentioned officials — Mulyani and Boediono — have all made public statements in defense of the government’s policy to bail out the bank.
Mulyani took the lead in defending the government’s decision in a media conference on Thursday afternoon. She insisted that her decision to bail out the bank was to prevent an economic crisis from happening in the country akin to that which occurred in 1998, and that her decision was based on the authority she was entitled to by existing laws.
Yudhoyono came in the defense of the policy later on Thursday evening. “The decision to save Bank Century was the right one … It would be inappropriate to take legal action against [government] policies,” the President told the Indonesian people in a televised speech.
Meanwhile, Boediono made his own official statement on Friday. Boediono similarly defended the government’s policy – only in a low-profile manner. He hinted that he would not be willing to resign from his post as requested by many, but expressed his commitment to comply with whatever the decision of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) if the recommendation made upon by the House’s plenary meeting on Wednesday was followed up by the Assembly — the country’s supreme political institution.
The government-parliament dispute, however, did not lessen the importance of the visit of former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, who was in the capital on Thursday to address dozens of high-ranking Indonesian officials in a lecture on “The Challenge for Leaders in a Multi-polar World”.
Annan praised Indonesia’s political and economic achievements, saying that Indonesia had the potential to be a major influence on other countries in the way it met development and religious challenges. “The progress made in the face of many challenges explains why Indonesia is seen as a model from which other countries can learn,” Annan said.
Political uproar at home in the past week was in sharp contrast to the two earthquakes that hit Chile last weekend and Taiwan on Thursday. The 8.8-magnitude Chile earthquake has killed hundreds of people and left a long swath of the country in smoky rubble, while no fatalities were reported in the 6.4-magnitude quake that hit southern Taiwan.
The Taiwan Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Center has dismissed that the quake in the peninsula was geologically related to the massive tremor that hit Chile, but hinted that its intensity was unusual for the area.
Still the Taiwan Seismology Center’s statement could not be considered as a general statement – valid for all quake-related incidents in many parts of the world, including Indonesia – because there are still unanswered or yet explainable facts regarding the domino effect, triggered by big earthquakes.
Scientists, as reported in the May 25 report of the journal Nature Geoscience, have found that 12 out of 15 large earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater that occurred since 1990 had generated surface waves that set off quakes around the planet. For instance, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which caused the devastating boxing day tsunami, triggered smaller earthquakes as far away as Alaska, California and Ecuador.
It is true that, so far, it cannot be proven that large earthquakes can trigger other large quakes. But, it does not mean that it is 100 percent impossible either. And Indonesia, which largely straddles the Ring of Fire, should not be an exception. The series of earthquakes this year, which started with the destructive 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands people, should be more than enough to warn both the Indonesian authorities and people to get prepared for subsequent earthquake(s) in Indonesia.
As people across the nation have anticipated for the worst possible outcome from the recommendations of the House’s special inquiry committee on the government’s Bank Century bailout policy, it is probably also proper for all elements of the nation to get prepared for any potential disasters, including the already predicted earthquakes, that may hit some parts of the country.
Sedia payung sebelum hujan, which literally means one should be prepared for the worst, as our forefathers have suggested, should not be considered as a mere suggestion from our elders, but be followed up with action.
— Imanuddin Razak
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