Yudhoyono Not Amused by Australia Graft Scandal

Come Clean: The president, who has been linked to a case involving the bribery of senior officials to print banknotes in Australia, wants a transparent investigation, despite a gag order by an Australian court

Jakarta Globe, Ezra Sihite & Erwida Maulia, Jul 31, 2014

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has demanded full transparency into
 an Australian corruption scandal in which his name has come up. An Australian
 court has barred that country’s media from reporting on the case. (Antara Photo/
Andika Wahyu)

Jakarta. Canberra has cleared Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of any involvement in an international corruption scandal implicating two subsidiaries of the Australian central bank, in a case that only came to light following a revelation by Wikileaks about a nationwide gagging order on the Australian media against reporting on the matter.

The so-called super injunction from the Supreme Court of Victoria, dated June 19 and made public by Wikileaks on Tuesday, prevents local media from reporting on corruption allegations related to Note Printing Australia (NPA) and Securency International, two subsidiaries of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

The gag order follows the secret June 19 indictment of seven senior executives from NPA and Securency concerning allegations of multi-million dollar inducements made in order to secure contracts for the supply of Australian-style polymer bank notes to the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries, Wikileaks reported.

Yudhoyono, along with his predecessor, Megawati Soekarnoputri, and the state enterprise minister during Megawati’s 2001-04 presidency, Laksamana Sukardi, are among 17 individuals listed in the court order, which also mentions the current and former heads of states of Malaysia and Vietnam.

The super injunction says there should be “no disclosure, by publication or otherwise, of any information (whether in electronic or paper form) [...] that reveals, implies, suggests or alleges” the 17 individuals received, witnessed or were intended to receive “a bribe or improper payment.”

It also specifically bans the publication of the order itself as well as an affidavit affirmed last month by Australia’s representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Gillian Bird, who has just been appointed as Australia’s permanent representative to the United Nations.

The document invokes “national security” grounds to prevent reporting about the case, in order to “prevent damage to Australia’s international relations.”

The Australian government on Tuesday acknowledged and defended the existence of the gag order.

“The Australian government obtained suppression orders to prevent publication of information that could suggest the involvement in corruption of specific senior political figures in the region — whether in fact they were or not,” the Australian Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement. “The government considers that the suppression orders remain the best means for protecting the senior political figures from the risk of unwarranted innuendo.”

The embassy also cleared Yudhoyono and Megawati of allegations of improper conduct.

“The naming of such figures in the orders does not imply wrongdoing on their part. The [Australian] government stresses that the Indonesian president and the former president are not the subject of the Securency proceedings,” it said. “We [the Australian government] take the breach of the suppression orders extremely seriously and we are referring it to the police.”

The statement was issued to the Indonesian media shortly after Yudhoyono held a press conference at his home in Cikeas, Bogor, to protest the citing of his name in the super injunction, following a report earlier this week by the Indonesian daily Seputar Indonesia, or Sindo, which cited the Wikileaks report.

“The Wikileaks information which was put out by Sindo has tainted my good image and that of Ibu Mega [Megawati],” Yudhoyono said. “It can also trigger speculation, which might lead to libel. The news issued by Wikileaks and Sindo is something which has caused hurt.”

The president has demanded that Canberra make public any allegations of involvement of Indonesian officials in the case to clear things up. He also said Australia should work with Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in any investigation into the matter.

“I really hope and I want the Australian government and authorities to open and reveal as clearly as is possible the legal [case]. Don’t cover it up. I want this to be crystal clear throughout the country,” Yudhoyono said. “Please reveal, identify and investigate the people [involved]. If someone has been accused of breaking the law, what is the case and what is the violation? And I hope that if someone [in Indonesia] is involved, then they cooperate with the KPK.”

The KPK did not respond to the Jakarta Globe’s inquiries on the matter, but previous media reports dating back to 2010 found the antigraft body had considered launching investigations into the case back then.

A report by Bloomberg News in August last year said Radius Christanto, a Singapore-based Indonesian businessman who played an alleged middleman role in the case, agreed to his extradition to Australia to testify in Australian court proceedings concerning the case.

Radius allegedly helped NPA and Securency channel $1.3 million in bribes to two Bank Indonesia officials to win a project to print 500 million 100,000-rupiah bills from 1999 to 2004. The project was reportedly worth $55.5 million. The polymer notes are no longer in use now.

Yudhoyono said Bank Indonesia did hire the RBA subsidiaries around that period and, allegations aside, was authorized to do so.

“But my point is, that is the authority of BI. So whoever the president was in 1999, or when the banknotes were printed in Australia, they couldn’t be involved in the decision-making process,” he said.

Wikileaks has slammed the “unprecedented” censorship order, calling it “the worst in living memory.” It says the last known blanket suppression order of this nature by the Australian government was granted in 1995 and concerned the joint US-Australian intelligence spying operation against the Chinese Embassy in Canberra.

“With this order, the Australian government is not just gagging the Australian press, it is blindfolding the Australian public,” Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement posted on the group’s website on Tuesday. “Foreign Minister Julie Bishop must explain why she is threatening every Australian with imprisonment in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing corruption scandal involving the Australian government.

“The concept of ‘national security’ is not meant to serve as a blanket phrase to cover up serious corruption allegations involving government officials, in Australia or elsewhere. It is in the public interest for the press to be able to report on this case. Who is brokering our deals, and how are we brokering them as a nation? Corruption investigations and secret gag orders for ‘national security’ reasons are strange bedfellows. It is ironic that it took Tony Abbott to bring the worst of ‘Asian Values’ to Australia.”

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