Roy Tupai – World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who served as US ambassador to Indonesia from 1986-89 and more recently as hawkish deputy defense secretary, has been back in town this month, extolling the need for good governance, supremacy of the law and anti-corruption strategies.

Critics say his message is a bit late in coming – 20 years to be precise. The general consensus is that while Wolfowitz was a congenial and competent diplomat during his posting in Jakarta, he almost never tried to encourage the Suharto regime to adopt democratization, respect for human rights or clean governance.

It was only in his final days as ambassador that he made some politely worded parting remarks about Indonesia's corruption and political repression. In his May 1989 farewell speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia, he said that "if greater openness is a key to economic success, I believe there is increasingly a need for openness in the political sphere as well".

Apparently unwilling to risk causing offense by using taboo words such as corruption and nepotism, he said "the cost of the high-cost economy remains too high, for the private sector to flourish, special privilege must give way to equal opportunity and equal risk for all".

Wolfowitz claimed he also paid a farewell visit on Suharto at this time and raised three sensitive issues: "the problem of succession; the problem of corruption as a drag on economic growth; and the need for greater political openness in a country whose economy was becoming increasingly open and whose growing middle class was demanding a greater voice in government".

Jeffrey Winters, an American expert on Indonesia disagreed, saying "it is really too much to claim that he played any kind of role in leading Indonesia to democracy".

Wolfowitz on Tuesday announced the World Bank and multilateral development banks were working on a common strategy to blacklist firms that engage in corruption. "I believe it would be good if all development institutions would publicly blacklist firms and individuals that engage in bribery in projects, as the World Bank already does," he said.

Countries that upset Wolfowitz are also being penalized. In January, he suspended $124 million in World Bank loans to the impoverished sub-Saharan African nation of Chad because its government had sought access to a poverty alleviation fund generated from the country's oil revenues. Critics complain that Wolfowitz is using World Bank money to help develop a Third World country's oil fields to benefit the US and ExxonMobil.

As one of the world's poorest countries, landlocked Chad cannot afford to pay its civil servants and also has to deal with thousands of refugees from neighboring Sudan and the Central African Republic. Kenya, Bangladesh and Congo-Brazzaville have also been refused loans by Wolfowitz for failing to abide by the terms of agreements with the World Bank.

It was a rather different story in January 1998, when Wolfowitz urged a US Congressional committee to release International Monetary Fund assistance to Indonesia before examining whether the program was suitable or open to embezzlement. "To withhold funding from the IMF because of concerns that some IMF programs may hurt the poor or help the wealthy or even rescue individuals or institutions from the consequences of their own irresponsibility would be like using an axe to do the work of a scalpel," he said.

Although Wolfowitz was known for ignoring human rights violations, many Indonesians were still shocked when he became US deputy defense secretary in 2001 and began promoting his policy of American global leadership through military force.

Indonesians who were vehemently opposed to the Iraq war seem to have short memories, as little fuss has been made over Wolfowitz's current visit, which commenced in Aceh on April 5. A recent column in The Jakarta Post heaps praise on Wolfowitz as the most prominent FOI (Friend of Indonesia) in Washington, notes his "love and affection" for the country and declares he is "perhaps Indonesia's most effective advocate overseas".

A barrage of critical articles appeared one year ago when US President George W. Bush announced his intention of putting Wolfowitz at the helm of the World Bank. Following is one of the articles, written by Jeffrey Winters. It was originally published on March 29, 2005, by the Joyo Indonesia News Service.