Asia Times: Amien takes big dig at Wahid over 'Kissinger's mine'



	March 3, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Amien takes big dig at Wahid over 'Kissinger's mine'

JAKARTA - US gold and copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia may be taken to court if it committed corruptive and collusive practices in winning its work contract, People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) chairman Amien Rais said on Wednesday.

''According to the US Anti-Corruption Act, a company may be fined or punished if it is proven involved in corruption and collusion in its business or investment activities in foreign countries,'' he said.

Rais' statement came two days after former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger made a statement calling on Indonesia to respect Freeport's work contract. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) on Wednesday issued a strong protest against Kissinger's statement and accused him of having used his power to pressure Indonesia.

Rais said Kissinger fully represented Freeport and not the US government, because ''he holds no government posts at all''. Kissinger is on the board of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, owner of PT Freeport Indonesia. Rais supported Walhi's stand, urging it to further investigate indications of corruption and collusion in Freeport's working contract.

If the company proved to have committed such practices, this had to be reported to the US government so that a court could be jointly set up by the US and Indonesian governments to deal with the case, he said.

He said that in the present era of democratization, the government's position did not always have to prevail and conversely, the people's views were not always wrong. ''If the government is right, the people should listen to it. On the other hand, if the people are right, the government should do what the people want,'' he said.

Referring to the appointment of Kissinger as an adviser to President Abdurrahman Wahid, Rais said this was merely a symbolic act because Indonesia, as a self-reliant and sovereign country, had no need for foreign advisers.

''If the appointment was real, we would certainly have no other choice but to reject it because Indonesia is a sovereign and self-reliant state. We don't need Kissinger, Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong or Khadafi or Khomaeni from Iran. So we are really self-reliant,'' he said.

If President Wahid had actually appointed Lee Kwan Yew as an economic adviser and Henry Kissinger as an adviser for social affairs, he was likely to keep on adding more personalities to the list. ''Who knows, some day Premier John Howard of Australia could be appointed as a general adviser for the Asia Pacific region and President Jiang Zemin of China as adviser on Chinese-style diplomacy and so on,'' Rais said, adding: ''I think this is all just the president's way of being funny.''

(Asia Pulse/ANTARA)

back to the top

©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.