Buaya's and cicak's!

Never smile at a crocodile

Julia Suryakusuma
The Jakarta Post
Publication Date : 19-05-2010

Politics in Indonesia seems to be mainly about corruption these days and our daily news is turning into a long-running fable about two animals - the gecko and the crocodile. And it seems I can’t even escape when I go for my early morning walk! You see, I have the doubtful honor of having one of the crocodiles as a neighbor - none other than the infamous Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji himself, in fact.

Susno is, of course, the notorious former cop who last year lost his powerful position as chief of the National Police Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim). For months, he’s hogged the headlines because of his alleged involvement in several high-caliber corruption cases investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

In fact, it was Susno who started the whole crocodile/gecko saga when he famously mocked the KPK by comparing it to a small gecko for daring to take on the police, whom he likened to crocodiles, predicting a grim fate for the little lizard. Ironically, his threats only spurred the birth of the CICAK declaration and movement, with CICAK, the Indonesian word for gecko, becoming an acronym for Cinta Indonesia, Cinta KPK (Love Indonesia, Love the KPK). Susno himself became nationally famous as one of the crocodiles, a symbol of police corruption.

I had walked past Susno’s house before, but only recently realised that I had been inside several years ago, while attending neighborhood and community association (RT/RW) meetings when he was the local RT head. There was nothing special about the house back then, but to my surprise it now has huge banners in the red-and-white colors of the Indonesian flag hung all over the fence and walls, proclaiming Susno a champion of anticorruption “supported by millions”.

One banner lists the names of over 25 organisations that now back Susno, including student organisations, religious organisations (Christian and Muslim) and the names of a number of nasty ethnic chauvinist vigilante groups prone to use violence (you know who I mean!). Some of these groups have been known to be rivals, sometimes clashing in the street, but now they are all united in Susno’s defense. Wonder how that happened?

It is all pretty amazing - another “only in Indonesia” situation. It goes something like this: because Susno lost his war against the geckos (and his job in the process), he now faces corruption charges. In response, he is desperately trying to metamorphose into a gecko himself, by turning whistle-blower.

This is weirder than Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, who turns into a giant insect, but I must say there are some parallels.

In any case, there’s nothing surprising about the allegations against Susno despite the praise he once received for his anticorruption stance during his tenure as West Java Police chief.

After all, corruption has long been considered a mainstay of our police force. What is unusual is that Susno is now accusing a number of high-ranking police officers of being involved in the criminal manipulation of Rp 25 billion (US$2.7 million) in taxes. If he’s going to go down, Susno thinks, he may as well drag all his fellow cor...er, I mean, his former colleagues, with him, and who knows, maybe even (excuse another animal metaphor) bigger fish as well. In the old days, we would have called this “maling teriak maling” (a thief shouting thief), and that is how many see Susno’s behaviour.

But perhaps there is something positive in all this mess. Maybe what Susno is doing is a reflection of how the anti-corruption ethos has now become so firmly entrenched in the Indonesian collective psyche that even corruptors are appropriating it to defend themselves?

'Anti-KKN' (anticorruption, collusion and nepotism) is so central now, Susno figures, that if he dobs in others, who knows, maybe he can save himself. In other words, Susno is doing a Golkar: The crony-laden political vehicle of the authoritarian Soeharto regime that in the reform era has tried to reinvent itself as a clean, reformist political party. Perhaps they’re all banking on another national case of Indo(am)nesia?

Maybe they’re right. Certainly Indonesians seem to have short memories. How else can you explain how Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto could have risen phoenix-like from the ashes of 1998 (although, in his case, the bird that comes to mind is more a vulture than a phoenix)? Despite being a cashiered general and self-confessed human rights violator, Prabowo formed a political party and ran for elections as a presidential candidate. He now controls about 5 percent of the DPR.

Unfortunately, Prabowo’s phoenix strategy probably won’t work for wannabe-gecko Susno just yet. This is because of the tape-recording broadcast nationwide only at the end of last year where Susno, in full crocodile mode, conspired to frame Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah, two KPK deputy commissioners. It riveted millions to their TV sets, and makes it hard for anyone to take Susno seriously as the new Steve 'Crocodile Hunter' Irvine.

So what else can Susno now do to save himself from the hungry crocs that surround him? His wife tried the woman-to-woman approach by writing to Ani Yudhoyono and the President, “requesting protection and fair treatment” for her husband, but that didn’t achieve much. Perhaps Susno could try the amnesia trick of Nunun Nurbaeti Daradjatun, wife of another former top cop and key witness in the bribery case relating to the appointment of former deputy senior governor Miranda Goeltom?

Hmmm … could be tricky given how much Susno has said recently, including on TV talk shows! Or what about Soeharto’s “I’m-too-sick-to-be-tried” tactic? Unfortunately, this strategy was recently attempted by Anggoro, the businessman involved in the attempted bribery of Bibit and Chandra that started the whole gecko-crocodile thing, and it didn’t get him off the hook. Oh dear!

Quite honestly, things ain’t looking too good for Pak Susno, the almost gecko. I wonder how much longer those banners will stay up?

The writer (www.juliasuryakusuma.com) is the author of Julia’s Jihad.



(honestly borrowed from the JakPos )