Ex-general Wiranto guested on a chat show last week on Metro TV, a station owned by Suarya Paloh, a key figure in the Golkar Party (the vehicle of president Suharto during Indonesia's New Order military dictatorship). Wiranto is running for vice-president, despite saying he only wanted the top job (see Number Ones Only Please) - the presidential candidate is chair of er... the Golkar Party. Well, that explains the fawning and sycophantic nature of the interviewer.Anyway, Wiranto was asked how he came to have so much money. "I was surprised to find myself so rich", he purred. Apparently he scraped together Rp81 billion (around US$8 million) from his meager salary as Army commander to buy a few parcels of land, and inflation did the rest.
Anyway, on to the thorny question of human rights. "Are you a human rights abuser?" smiled Andy F. Noya, the friendly interviewer. Shameful as it is to report, the audience laughed!! Perhaps there is something funny about murdering people, burning their homes, pouring concrete in irrigation ditches and herding thousands of people across the border that had escaped me...
Anyway, back to the ex-general. After saying that claims made at the time of his unsuccessful 2004 presidential bid were no longer valid, he had the bare-faced cheek to claim he had never been indicted. Hmmm. Let's have a look at The Guardian dated 25 February 2003. In case any Wiranto fans are too lazy to use their right fingers for anything other than shooting unarmed civilians, allow me to reproduce the headline here:
UN indicts general for East Timor crimes
Clear enough. That makes the above quite a lie. Murdering pig.
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2 comments:
I am trying to read between the lines here and I'm guessing you aren't a big fan of this guy. Come on, Ben, come off the fence!
I too regularly check my bank account and am surprised at how rich I've become! "Wow! How'd that happen," I ask myself. It is then that I generally realize that I'm a corrupt, murdering twat, rotten to the very core.
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