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If a report by the antigraft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch is true, former Foreign Minister Nur Hassan Wirajuda and the newly appointed ambassador to China, Imron Cotan, have been engaged in activities beyond diplomacy.

As the ICW report has it, Wirajuda and Cotan received, respectively, Rp 1 billion ($107,000) and Rp 2 billion, in the form of “gratifications” from their subordinates in charge of travel arrangements for Indonesian diplomats.

In a written statement on the corruption scandal issued last week, the ICW identified two senior officials at the ministry allegedly involved in the case only by their initials, NHW and IC. But there is no mistaking that they are Wirajuda and Cotan, who are acknowledged by many as two of the country’s finest diplomats.

So sure is the ICW of its allegations that it has urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to summon Wirajuda, who is now a member of the President’s Council of Advisers (Wantimpres), to clarify the matter.

The deputy coordinator of the ICW, Emerson Yuntho, has said that the “failure to do so would be a signal that the president allows corruption in his administration.”

At issue is the report that senior officials at the ministry marked up travel costs in 2008 and 2009 by 60 percent to 100 percent in an alleged scam involving major travel agents.

It is not as yet clear why these officials shared the spoils with their superiors, as the ICW alleges.

If indeed they did so, it is safe to presume it was in order to spread the risk, a time-honored tradition many Foreign Ministry officials have mastered all too well.

The ICW lamented the fact that the ministry had dismissed the case as “a normal administrative breach,” prompting the group to call on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to investigate further.

Reports say the ministry has since either discharged, demoted or posted overseas 17 officials in connection with the Rp 19.7 billion scam (the ministry had earlier mentioned a figure of Rp 30 billion).

Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah acknowledged that the Foreign Ministry’s rank and file were devastated and demoralized by the corruption report.

But insiders insist that such financial shenanigans are common practice within the Foreign Ministry, and wonder what — and who — triggered the investigation.

If they were surprised at all by the case, they say, it was by the scale of the scam, and that it had come out into the open.

Speculation was rife as the case unraveled in November, just one month after the new cabinet was formed, with Marty Natalegawa replacing Wirajuda as foreign minister.

At the time, an intensive internal probe led officials at the ministry to consider involving the Attorney General’s Office. An internal debate as to whether to call in AGO officials or to settle the matter in-house apparently ensued.

It was only in early February that the ministry wrote an official letter — which was apparently leaked to the ICW and the press — asking the AGO to investigate.

To Natalegawa’s credit, the letter also pledged the ministry’s commitment to get to the bottom of the matter, a statement signalling a cover-up was not an option, even if the case turned out to involve the ministry’s former boss.

This case is the latest in a series of financial malfeasances that have plagued the Foreign Ministry in recent times. Former ambassadors to Malaysia and China are now behind bars after being caught in collusion with their staff in issuing double receipts for visa applications and passport extensions.

Strangely enough, one of them, a former police chief, said he would never have accepted the ambassadorship had he known he would later be imprisoned for doing what he believed was normally done by others with impunity.

Earlier, a former senior diplomat posted in Singapore was found to have pocketed money from a local contractor renovating the embassy building. A pending corruption case involves the ambassador to Thailand.

One retired career diplomat and a former ambassador from the respected 1945 generation said: “In the old days, we didn’t steal, not because there was nothing to steal, but because it was simply wrong to do so.”

Neither Wirajuda nor Cotan have so far issued a denial, and it remains to be seen how far the ICW or the authorities will pursue the matter.

What is certain is that times have changed in ways that have compromised the noble values of our elders, often referred to as Indonesia’s greatest generation.

 

Taufik Darusman is a veteran Jakarta-based journalist.