Louise Williams – It is almost a pathetic image. Once they were the most powerful family in the land, accustomed to trotting the globe in their private aircraft and slicing up the national economy in their opulent living rooms, squabbling over contracts like children sharing out cake.
Now, insiders say, the Soehartos are virtual prisoners in their own homes, rarely seen in public. Their lifestyle has been reduced to clutching the television remote control, and their homes are sealed off by tanks and troops. Only the former president of Indonesia's parrot has failed to acknowledge his master's rapid fall from grace, still greeting him every morning as "Bapak [Father] President" at his home in the leafy, colonial suburb of Menteng in central Jakarta.
When the Habibie Government finally announced it would seek "clarification" of the wealth amassed by Soeharto during his 32 years in power, a lone bunch of flowers was carried past the soldiers and the bored journalists camped out at the roadblocks that ring the complex where much of the extended Soeharto clan live. The note said simply "Perseverance", and was signed by an ordinary family from the city's middle-class outskirts.
But that is where the sympathy ends. Many of the members of the elite who benefited handsomely under Soeharto have betrayed him, calculating that their own survival depends on distancing themselves from the old man.
"I am very sad to see those who were licking Soeharto's boots now harassing him and claiming to be reformists just to save themselves," says one former political ally, who himself jumped off the Soeharto ship just weeks before it sank.
A recent survey carried out by the University of Indonesia found that 74.6per cent of Indonesians believe that Soeharto was lying during a broadcast on his daughter's television station last month in which he claimed to have "not one cent" squirrelled away in accounts overseas. And more than 95per cent of respondents said he should "account" for the "various deviations" during his rule.
Since Soeharto's resignation, amid the chaos and violence of the riots in Jakarta in May, an old taboo has been broken. For decades public discussion of Soeharto's affairs was tantamount to treason. Now, newly liberated tabloids drool over the latest scandals: this week a popular TV soap opera star said she had given birth to the illegitimate child of Soeharto's socialite grandson, Ari Sigit, when she was only 16. She was, she claims, paid a small fortune for her silence and an agreement to hand over the baby to Sigit's aunt. Now, five years later and burdened by regret, she says the cheque was never cashed and she wants her son back. (In any case, the cheque was drawn on one of the family's banks, which has collapsed).
One insider says that the wife of Soeharto's second son, Bambang Trihatmodjo, was snubbed by other mothers when she picked up her children's school report cards recently. Her husband, meanwhile, was lining up to be questioned by police over financial crimes and is banned from leaving the country.
The Soeharto grandchildren, the source says, have been taunted by their former friends and street vendors alike. "I think they were caught by surprise by the weakness of their friendships. Now, they are very much ignored. I think they are considered a social problem, a liability to be associated with," says Rizal Ramli, an economist.
Some old associates says Soeharto's six children, all of whom built business empires during his rule, are frightened by the almost daily demonstrations against the clan's wealth, despite a deal cut with the armed forces for "protection". Others say the children are furious about the Government's decision to investigate their father's wealth and are determined to obstruct the proceedings. They are also said to be obsessively collecting articles written about them since their political demise.
They have been forced to resign from all their positions within the ruling Golkar party and the Parliament. But Soeharto still holds the key to the party's war chest, refusing to sign over more than 800billion rupiah ($175million) locked inside several of the charitable foundations set up under his government and used to channel political "donations" from business associates.
They have resigned from high-profile positions in their own companies, and domestic and foreign business partners who once considered their signatures gold are now rushing to dump them.
The economic crisis – combined with the end of privileged access to contracts – has wiped out the share values of the former first family's companies. Scores of politically sensitive contracts with Soeharto companies have been cancelled.
From news of what the family has lost since May, a picture is emerging of what they had, and how they obtained it. The list of deals is overwhelming; land swaps that gave the children valuable blocks of government land in central Jakarta in exchange for rice fields on the city limits, government-owned shares sold at a huge loss to a Soeharto family company, incredible oil trading monopolies which netted profits of between 20 and 70 US cents a barrel in a country that exports 1.4million barrels of oil a day – and even monopolies on the processing of driver's licences and the charter rights for the annual Haj pilgrimage.
But in his handful of appearances since May, Soeharto has appeared confident and defiant. He has repeatedly denied he has any money to hide. Bambang has joined in, claiming the economic crisis has ruined his extensive businesses and that he can no longer be called a rich man. "Indonesia's case is unique: the toppled leader is still here," says a noted economist, Syahrir. "In the Philippines the Marcos family fled; so did the Shah of Iran.
"No matter how absurd it seems, Soeharto still thinks he can manage this country in one way or another. Imagine somebody who spent 32 years in power, everything he said became the law of the country, he was surrounded by people who served his will and those he didn't like he just threw away."
Soeharto is a shrewd and intelligent man. Many analysts believe he may not have "even one cent" deposited under his own name. It is also clear that the Soeharto fortune – estimated at anywhere between $US4billion and $US40billion – has been greatly diminished by the economic downturn and the collapse of the family's biggest economic asset, political power.
How much of the money was moved offshore in advance under powers of attorney remains unknown, despite claims from Austria that the Soehartos may have been behind a sudden $US7billion jump in foreign deposits during the first quarter of 1998. Another mystery surrounds the huge fire in the brand new central bank building earlier this year, in which tens of thousands of financial documents were destroyed.
But perhaps more important is the question of just how determined the Habibie Government is to investigate the Soeharto fortune. When B.J. Habibie accepted the mantle of leadership from Soeharto, it was like an aging mentor passing the baton to his younger protege, so close were the two men. Habibie, like many of Soeharto's former political allies, benefited greatly during his mentor's rule.
On the one hand Habibie's tenuous hold on power demands that he be seen to be accounting for the excesses of the past; on the other, the business interests of the Habibie family and the Soeharto children overlap in at least three areas.
"Soeharto had a couple of months before the investigation was announced to tie up loose ends. Any cash that could be traced is now untraceable. They covered their tracks very well, is my guess," said one diplomat. "I think he went on television [denying his wealth] to throw out a challenge to Habibie: "Push me too hard and I will come out with evidence that you benefited too.'"
One former Soeharto business associate said: "They are just sitting there, trying to look cool, sweating it out, under the protection of the army. They are taking the attitude that "This is my story, I am sticking to it. You think I am a thief, then prove it.'
"But the people on the streets will get angrier and angrier. So Soeharto is under a kind of house arrest. Yes, he can go anywhere he likes, but people will throw rocks at him. Remember, these are people who used to fly anywhere they wanted in their own planes - now they are just holding the television remote controls."
Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, or "Mbak [sister] Tutut" as she is better known, is sick from the stress of it all. Just over six months ago Soeharto's eldest daughter was the darling of her father's ruling Golkar party, energetically criss-crossing the country as party chairwoman, head of the Indonesian Red Cross, and then Minister for Social Affairs in her father's last Cabinet.
As Soeharto's eldest child she was often favoured by father, accompanying him at official public functions after her mother died in 1996 and sharing his passion for politics. There was even speculation that he was building a political dynasty, with Tutut his immediate heir.
In public she was careful to project a conservative image, her head covered with a Muslim scarf, albeit fashionably toned to match her modest dress. Those close to her say she fancied herself as the "mother of the nation" and she was genuinely fond of children and concerned for their welfare.
Privately, though, the gossip was less kind. Tutut was widely rumoured to be close to a senior retired general, who was not her husband, and behind the scenes at home she was said to fight viciously with her younger brother, Bambang, over the business opportunities her father could bestow.
When Tutut was just 21, she became a shareholder in Bank Central Asia, controlled by her father's buddy Liem Sioe Liong, who became Indonesia's richest man under Soeharto's patronage. From that humble base grew her own business interests expanding into an empire straddling toll road constructions and operation, finance, oil, petrochemicals, agribusiness, television and banking. In 1997 the book Asia's Wealth Club listed Tutut – now 49 – as worth $US2billion.
"Tutut is at home resting. She is ill from all the stress," said another source, mentioning the scandal of Ari Sigit's alleged "love child", whom Tutut has been raising. She may also be feeling quite unwell over the state of her business affairs.
In July 1997, the shares under her control in her publicly listed toll road company, Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada (CMNP), were worth about $US286million. Last week they were worth about $US1million. The collapse in First Family shares goes way beyond the impact of the 75per cent depreciation in the rupiah, and reflects investors' concern that the company may eventually become the target of corruption investigations.
"If you look at CMNP's balance sheet, their best asset was "goodwill' from the Government. Now that is gone," said a finance industry source. Indonesia's drivers were also caught in Tutut's financial net when they processed their licences. According to a police source, only 4,500 rupiah per licence went to the state from the 52,500-rupiah processing fee charged by a company owned by Tutut under a five-year administration contract signed with the national police. That contract is now under review.
In June this year Tutut missed a $US6.3million interest payment on $US175million worth of bonds. A company spokesman said banks had been "reluctant" to change her rupiah into dollars to meet the deadline. Hong Kong's Peregrine Bank had already collapsed, forced to the wall by a $US450million bad debt owed by the Steady Safe taxi and bus company, in which Tutut had a interest.
Her own 17.5per cent interest in the Bank Central Asia didn't help. A huge run on the bank, as well as the torching of many of the BCA branch offices during anti-Soeharto rioting, emptied its coffers and exhausted the central bank's willingness to print money. Seventeen per cent of all the money within the Indonesian banking system was withdrawn in one week. The Habibie Government took over the management of BCA. Now Liem Sioe Liong is trying to wrest back control by handing over much of his own business empire to the state. None of his assets in which a Soeharto also has an interest are on the payback list, so Tutut's is not part of the recapitalisation.
Her plans, says insiders, are to return quietly to the rural villages of Java and hand out food to the poor and money to the local schools. Less is known about the emotions of her two most prominent brothers, but a great deal is slowly being revealed about their businesses.
"These are people who always used other people's money. There is no doubt that over the years they became richer and greedier and their father lost control over them. People used to take their businesses to them on a platter," said the former Soeharto associate. "Now they have to compete, and even if they do have some legitimate businesses to offer no-one wants to deal with them. "To their credit, they were personally always very polite to deal with."
They were also obsessively private. Said one business consultant: "Deals were done at home. Once the consultant had made the presentation, he left. Even one of my wealthy colleagues was astonished at the number of cars and the opulence. He was even more surprised when a pet tiger came padding through the living room."
Not so polite were the men known as the "underlings". According to Jakarta sources the family's business pimps operated on commission, and would simply report back when another deal was done. An Australian expert on Asian business, Michael Backman, has identified 1,247 separate and active companies in Indonesia alone which count one Soeharto or another as a significant shareholder.
"If you were at the mercy of the underlings they would kick you around something terrible. They applied terrible pressure in the name of Bambang or Tommy and made all sorts of threats to ruin your business if you didn't comply," the former associate said.
Bambang Trihatmodjo, 46, was worth an estimated $US3billion last year. Last week he was called in by police for questioning over banking crimes and has been banned from leaving the country. The charges against him relate to exceeding the legal lending limit at his now liquidated Bank Andromeda, essentially meaning he and his business partners used depositors' money to fund their own big petrochemical project, Chandra Asri.
Bambang's flagship Bimantara Citra has more than 100 subsidiaries with interests in telecommunications, broadcasting, oil and gas, the automotive industry, infrastructure, finance, electronics and entertainment. Bambang's 388million shares in the publicly listed slice of his empire were worth $US759million in June 1997. Last week they were worth about $US580,000, trading at only 150 rupiah per share, or 2.5 Australian cents each.
"This is a really, really unprecedented loss on the share value, and that doesn't include the company's performance itself. Bimantara has lost a lot of contracts, the auto division is facing an 80per cent contraction in the market, the Chandra Asri deal is a financial time bomb," the former Soeharto associate said.
Even his magnificent luxury Dharmawangsa Hotel, set in lush gardens in south Jakarta, is eerily empty, its opening last year coinciding with the economic collapse. Now his luxury Grand Hyatt hotel in the city is being snubbed in favour of hotels with less obvious crony connections.
One of the biggest cash cows for the Soeharto boys was Pertamina, the state oil and gas monopoly. One senior oil industry executive says Tutut once approached him for a contract. "I told her to talk to Bambang, and he told her to back off, that is how they divided things up. I didn't hear from her again," he said.
How the First Family, and other cronies, milked the Pertamina system is a long and complicated story. Simply put, they acted as brokers for Pertamina, which has a monopoly on imports and exports of oil. Indonesia is a significant oil producer and exports about 1.4million barrels a day, but at the same time imports about 350,000 barrels a day of a cheaper oil type for its domestic market.
Pertamina announced it was cancelling trading contracts with two companies, one part-owned by Bambang, the other part-owned by Soeharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra. The Minister for State Administrative Reform, Hartarto, once a cosy political ally, announced that Pertamina would save $US82.76million a year simply by not dealing with the Soehartos.
Arifin Panigoro, head of the Medco group of companies which controls oil fields off Sumatra, believes the family accumulated huge amounts of American dollars after entering oil trading in 1984. "All the oil goes through family companies assigned by the Government, so they get a fee," he said. "But they also got involved in the spot market. When they made a profit they took it; when they made a loss it was booked to Pertamina. I think now we can reduce the brokerage fee by 30 cents a barrel."
Another executive from a large international oil company found himself assigned to Bambang as a 10per cent partner. "The rules are that when a field is declared commercial by both Indonesia and the oil company, then an Indonesian interest takes a 10per cent stake. Pertamina chose the partner, and we got Bimantara."
Technically, such a partner is expected to put up 10per cent of the capital. But Bimantara didn't pay. "We had a lot of arguments and we decided to carry them, which means they pay back the money out of their share of the oil, plus a heavy penalty. They still haven't earned any money, so maybe they just wanted to be in oil for the prestige."
Another disaster for Bimantara was Pertamina's insistence that Bimantara be allowed to build the East Java gas pipeline, using a $US400million loan from Japanese banks to be paid back using the "tolls" for gas transport. The project was delayed by two and a half years and completed in 1994. The problem now is that the pipeline's biggest gas customer, the state electricity company, PLN, is virtually bankrupt and can no longer pay the "toll", so Bimantara can no longer pay the Japanese banks.
For Tommy, the youngest son, business has never been worse. Insiders say he was the family's "lucky charm", and, as such, indulged by his father. Last week the Habibie Government presented Tommy with a bill for unpaid taxes on his Timor car project. This was the so-called "national car", fully imported from South Korea with exclusive tax concessions in exchange for a promise to increase the local content of the vehicle on an annual timetable. The project never went beyond stage one. Only $US200million of a $US700million loan facility arranged through state banks was drawn down, but now the cash-strapped Government wants the tax paid back. One consultant estimated the tax bill at $US168million.
Early on in the economic crisis, Tommy also lost Indonesia's main private airline, Sempati, which he ran in conjunction with a foundation controlled by the armed forces. The American dollar leases on the aircraft could not be met, so they were flown back to their owners one by one.
At the same time, demonstrations by airport staff prompted the cancellation of a lucrative cargo handling contract held by Bimantara. At the insistence of the International Monetary Fund Tommy lost the outrageous clove monopoly under which he had controlled the key ingredient of popular kretek cigarettes.
Tommy was also forced to sell his 60per cent stake in the luxury Italian sports car company Lamborghini, which fitted the bachelor image he promoted before his recent marriage.
Pertamina has announced the cancellation of a joint venture with Tommy's Humpuss group to operate a petrochemical refinery, and is renegotiating down the cost of using a tanker fleet owned by Tommy and his eldest brother, Sigit Harjoudanto.
According to George Aditjondro, a sociologist who has been compiling an inventory of Soeharto's wealth for years, one of the family's most viable remaining businesses is the tanker fleet, now based in Singapore and out of reach of Indonesia's zealous reformists.
The fate of Sigit's estimated $US450million is far less clear, as is the 1997 valuation of $US200million put on assets controlled by Soeharto's second daughter, Siti "Titiek" Hedijanti Harijadi, who has real estate and retail interests, and the $US100million estimated for the youngest daughter, Siti "Mimiek" Hutami Endang Adiningsih, who has interests in plantations and transport.
Sigit's name was most frequently heard in connection with "Bob" Hasan, Soeharto's golfing buddy and high-profile deal maker. Hasan lost his own cash cow to the IMF reforms. This was a timber cartel that handled three-quarters of the world's plywood exports for a fee. Both Sigit and Hasan hold a 10per cent stake in an investment company, known as Nusamba. The remaining 80per cent is owned by three foundations controlled by Soeharto.
Indonesia's charitable foundations, or yayasans, are the missing links in any investigation of the Soehartos' wealth. Roderick Brazier, of the Castle Group business consultancy in Jakarta, estimated the 13 foundations controlled by the family to be worth about $US2billion.
According to Syahrir, the economist, the creation of the foundations in the early 1970s was the beginning of the distortion of the national economy. They were established in the name of certain charities - foundations for asthma, for school and mosque construction, and scholarships, for example - and were not subject to tax or to external audits. The Government then approved the compulsory deduction of a small percentage of the wages of civil servants and members of the armed forces, and deductions from state banks as donations.
"They started taking deductions from the salaries of 3million civil servants in the 1970s up to the late 1990s, so of course they took a lot of money away. Then, with such huge amounts of money they [the family and other cronies] sometimes used the foundations as banks at a low interest rate to build a project allocated by the state," Syahrir said.
Most of the foundations were used for business investment, and many foundation names appear on projects in Indonesia, according to a senior Golkar source. The accounts were not open to public scrutiny. "So, if you wanted to do business you donated to a yayasan controlled by Soeharto or his friends, then that money could be used for political campaigns or the accumulation of personal wealth," the source said.
The regulations enforcing compulsory deductions have been abolished, but executives of the four largest foundations controlled by Soeharto have refused to pass their funds to the Government and have insisted they will continue with their charitable work.
The most contentious of these is the Dakab foundation, set up in 1985, to finance Golkar, and now subject to protests over its use for "unfair" political gain. According to a Golkar source the assets of the foundation are at least 800billion rupiah. The remnants of Soeharto's Golkar group now want the money for their own election campaign next year, but Soeharto is refusing to budge.
HOW much money do the Soehartos really have left? Up to $US18billion, says the Indonesian Business Data Centre. Between $US8billion and $US10billion, says the Castle Group. "Anyone who claims to know cannot possibly know," Michael Backman said. "For a start, it is still not clear exactly what they have. Secondly, most of their assets are in Indonesia and all asset prices in Indonesia have collapsed, so this would have a big impact on the family's wealth. Also, many assets were only of real value while Soeharto was in power, and are not tradable. If pressed, I would say well under $US10billion."
The Jakarta-based consultant Hidayat Jati said: "Whether he has X billion dollars or not doesn't really matter. Everyone is looking for this lost treasure chest as if everything will be OK when they find it. But, even if Soeharto does have $US40billion, this is a structural problem for the economy and confidence won't return unless that is addressed.
"How did a president push around banks and force them to finance questionable projects? How did the Timor car get approved? The way the First Family did business was a structural problem."
Soeharto's old friends in the new government have been careful not to call the recent rounds of questioning "an investigation", but a "clarification", coming almost apologetically to his house with the news.
Within Indonesian society, it is true, there is considerable reluctance to humiliate the former president, both because he presided over long years of economic growth and because the habit of obedience to such absolute authority dies hard. The same cannot be said for the children. No such public service is tempering the public's demands for accountability.
Can an investigation succeed? Of course, says Suharsono Hadikusumo, a tax expert and former senior Finance Ministry official. "I worked in the Finance Ministry in 1990. I knew the following: Bambang Trihatmodjo applied to the Finance Minister to take over the shares of PT Intirub, a state-owned tyre company. The minister established a team of experts to assess the value of the 1,000 shares.
"They put the value at 7 million rupiah per share. Some time later the Finance Minister sold the shares to Bambang for 1million rupiah each, and the state suffered a loss of 6billion rupiah. Bambang then resold the shares to the Salim group, certainly at a huge profit. It was a very easy money-earner."
Suharsono says the records are still in the Finance Ministry archives and could easily be investigated if the political will were there. He also points to highly profitable land swaps of state land for developments by family members, saying all the records are still available.
"The public pressure for bringing Soeharto to court is increasing," said Rizal Ramli. "I don't think Soeharto and Habibie made a deal, but Habibie knows that it is in everyone's [the elites'] interest to protect each other. But if someone comes to power without emotional and historical connections to Soeharto it might be different."