U.N graft meeting targets plundering leaders
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - More than 100 countries met in Bali on Monday for a U.N. anti-corruption conference to find ways of clawing back some of the billions of dollars in assets stolen by corrupt leaders.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who won Indonesia's first direct presidential vote in 2004 on a pledge to end corruption, can expect his own track record to come under scrutiny, particularly his handling of the late former strongman Suharto.
In the decade since Suharto stepped down, the former president fended off all attempts to seize his family's fortune, which Transparency International put at $15-$35 billion.
"Corruption is a communicable disease, within and across countries. In some places, like a pandemic it is out of control," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which oversees a convention on corruption.
The United Nations Convention against Corruption, ratified by 107 nations, came into force three years ago and requires members to make corruption a criminal offence, as well as binding them to cooperate with each other over graft and to return stolen assets.
The task appears daunting. Global flows from criminal activities, corruption and tax evasion are estimated at between $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion a year, according to a United Nations and World Bank report.
Along with Suharto, a list of former leaders accused of robbing their own people, compiled by Transparency International, also includes Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, who amassed up to $10 billion, Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire, and Sani Abacha of Nigeria, who each took up to $5 billion.
Last September, the World Bank and the United Nations launched the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative, which aims to help poorer nations retrieve assets spirited away to richer countries.
SUHARTO CASE
Suharto died on Sunday after a long illness. He was 86.
Before his death, Indonesians vigorously debated whether he should be pardoned or brought to justice for graft and human rights abuses.
"In Indonesia, corruption is public enemy Number one", Widodo Adi Sutjipto, Indonesian minister for Security, Legal and Political Affairs told the conference.
The minister was reading a speech prepared by Yudhoyono, who cancelled his appearance at the conference to attend the funeral of Suharto in Solo, central Java.
Experts consistently rate Indonesia as one of the world's most corrupt nations.
After Suharto stepped down in 1998 amid mass protests, he was charged with embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds. While the criminal case against him was dropped due to his poor health, he still faced a civil case related to his charities' alleged misuse of state funds.
Before his death, Suharto and his family denied any wrongdoing.
Asked about the where the legal case against Suharto now stood, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said: "I will restrain myself not to discuss the issue while we are about to have the ceremony, the funeral for President Suharto."
But at a news conference on the sidelines of a corruption conference in Bali, he added that the government would "respect the legal systems applicable in Indonesia."
(Editing by Katie Nguyen)
