Читать книгу Indonesian Gold - Kerry B Collison - Страница 16

Heavily armed, blue-beret soldiers stood guard on both sides of Jalan Cendana preventing access to the well known address, those permitted to pass through the heavily cordoned street were either members of the First Family, or those closely associated with the Suharto regime.

A red Lamborghini roared around the corner from Jalan Waringin, the driver laughing as he drove the Italian racer directly at the guards, forcing them to leap sideways, and away from his path. With a squeal of burning rubber, the car turned into a driveway, the air suddenly quiet as the President’s son killed the engine and climbed out of his machine, then strutted arrogantly past a black Mercedes-Benz limousine with its ‘RI-1’ plates, into his father’s principal residence.

Inside, he paid his respects to his mother, before wandering through to the rear of the well-fortified compound, where he found a number of his siblings holding court.

‘It could only have been you, with that noisy car!’ an older sister complained.

‘You should be grateful that I get to use the city’s roads as much as I do,’ he retorted, referring to the fact that this sister had managed to convince their father to place tolls on the capital’s highways, the company appointed to collect the revenue, one of hers.

‘What’s wrong with them?’ he asked, nodding in the direction of his two brothers who appeared to be in heated discussion.

‘Same problem as before,’ she replied, clucking as their mother would whenever her children fought. Acrimonious, behind-thescene battles for power were becoming increasingly frequent in this household. Their first public dispute, almost a decade before, over who should be given the LNG shipping monopoly, severely embarrassed Palace circles. The President had finally decided in favor of one, offering the other an additional monopoly with the cukong, Liem Sioe Liong who never failed to contribute considerably to the family’s collective coffers.

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The children were all well versed in the importance of the cukongs – their father, Suharto, had been instrumental in paving the way for the Chinese to take control over the country’s economy, through which the First Family greatly benefited.

Suharto and Liem Sioe Liong had been financial companions dating back to the days when the former general commanded the Diponegoro Divisions in Central Java. Since ascending to the Presidency, the first major deals the partnership produced were the Bogasari flourmills in Surabaya and Jakarta in 1972, to mill US PL-480, foreign aid wheat. Now, after twenty-six years at the nation’s helm, the First Family controlled more than twenty foundations which owned stakes in a plethora of large corporations such as cement factories, timber concessions, oil palm plantations, fertilizer factories and even the country’s largest private bank. And, this was still not enough.

The President controlled the Judiciary, Parliament, and the Military. He personally appointed the Central Bank Governor, the Chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission and the CEOs of state-owned companies. And he wanted more.

Such was the power and extent of the Suharto Empire, the children entered adulthood distanced from reality, oblivious to the groundswell building against their family, unaware that their country had become a tinder-box of poverty and bitterness, ready to erupt.

More recently, the family had consolidated its interests in Timor, determined to control the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea, and in Natuna’s gigantic gas fields in the South China Sea. Now, after thirty years of Suharto rule, they had accumulated tens of billions of American dollars in wealth, owned a sprawling array of businesses from satellite communications to airlines, plantations, vehicle assembly plants and even public utilities. The children had acquired luxurious mansions, ranches and hotels in Britain, Bermuda, Hawaii, Germany, Australia and Singapore, their lifestyles a far cry from that of Indonesia’s landless peasants and slum dwellers, who, even if they were successful in finding work, would be forced to survive on as little as a dollar per day. With numbered bank accounts in Switzerland, Austria and Singapore, to hide their billions, the First Family went on the international acquisition trail purchasing fine art, golf courses, condominiums, yachts and private jets, the latter used to ferry the sons to casinos in Australia. And still, this was not enough. With his eyes firmly fixed on the mining sector, the younger Suharto had decided to ask for his father’s intervention, to enable him to acquire holdings in foreign mining joint ventures that had commenced production in Indonesia.

And, when this was granted, the son went after Kalimantan’s gold.

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