Indonesia's Suharto tops 'worst ever' corruption charts

[dArKeR]

LONDON (AFP) - Indonesia's former president Mohamed Suharto (news - web sites) holds the dubious title of being the most corrupt world leader in recent history, heading a "Top 10" corruption list.

Plundering a family fortune estimated at anything between 15 billion and 35 billion US dollars (12.4 to 29 billion euros) during his 32-year reign from 1967, Suharto was a clear winner, according to British-based Transparency International.

The group gave a corruption "top 10" for global political leaders over the past 20 years, released to coincide with the release of its annual Global Corruption Report, a round-up of government graft worldwide.

In second place was former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, deposed in 1986, who plundered between five and 10 billion dollars, Transparency International estimated.

The Philippines has the unfortunate boast of featuring two of its former presidents in the top 10, with Joseph Estrada (news - web sites), ousted in 2001, making the final spot with a haul of 78 to 80 million dollars.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040325/ts_afp/britain_world_corruption

For this a bunch of crap! Where are the KMT? Where is Communist China's bastards? Where is Ramos? Where is the Bush Crime Family?

I guarantee you the KMT stole double the amount listed for all 9 of these.

I don't believe Estrada stole what 'the fascists' say he stole. This was a Coup.


Choose any from this list of American installed butchers and you're already in the top 10!
Friendly Dictators Trading Cards
http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Cards_Index.html

Wouldn't the worst 'act of corruption' be the United States Supreme Monkey Court stopping the count of election ballots in Florida?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. Come on bushie, you can still catch up. eom

[fryguy]

4. great picture

but why is he picking on Rep. Moran?

[mobuto]

2. What's really upsetting

1. Mohamed Suharto, Indonesia, 1967-98, 15 to 35 billion dollars

2. Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, 1972-86, five to 10 billion

3. Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire, 1965-97, five billion

4. Sani Abacha, Nigeria, 1993-98, two to five billion

5. Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites), Serbia/Yugoslavia, 1989-2000, one billion

6. Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haiti, 1971-86, 300 to 800 million

7. Alberto Fujimori (news - web sites), Peru, 1990-2000, 600 million

8. Pavlo Lazarenko, Ukraine, 1996-97, 114 to 200 million

9. Arnoldo Aleman, Nicaragua, 1997-2000, 100 million

10. Joseph Estrada, Philippines, 1998-2001, 78 to 80 million

Seven of ten (all except for Milosevic, Lazarenko and Estrada) were US-backed. But there are some rather obvious offenders not on the list. Niyazov of Turkmenistan, Kim Jong Il, Lukashenko of Belarus, Karimov of Uzbekistan, Saddam Hussein, Menem of Argentina, etc.

[AP]

7. Where are the anti-neoliberals?

I guess if you're working to create wealth for your citizens rather than for Wall Street, you don't get your name on lists like this one.

[mobuto]

8. LOL

One-track mind at work.

How exactly would you apply the label "neo-liberal" to Mobutu Sese-Seko or Suharto? Somehow I seemed to miss Baby Doc Duvalier's free trade agenda as well. Help me out here!

[AP]

9. Llumumba was the anti-neoliberal. Which is why the CIA

had him killed and put Mobutu in power.

Duvalier kept wages low so that Levis could make their profits.

These people are corrupt because they're taking bribes from the people who have money to give them, and money to make off their countries -- big corporations, which are pursuing a neoliberal agenda.

You really don't know this stuff?

You said you went to Wesleyan, right? That's a good school. I'm sure they teach this stuff there.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

11. You really want to drive all these things into such narrow categories

It's very revealing.

Neoliberalism is ONLY about tariffs and wages?

Being close to the soviet union has nothing to do with profits for America companies?

Llumumba was killed because he wanted the wealth of his nation to be enjoyed by its citizens. America corporations and European corporations were really worried about what this meant for the profits of, especially, mining corporations. So they had him killed. That's NOT about neoliberalism? Because it doesn't have to do with tariffs and wages?

As for two user names, what do you think my other user name is?

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

13. That is so funny. No it isn't.

I'm definitely NOT ChavezSpeaks.

Why would I have to do that on the issue of Chavez?

You need to deal with the fact that there are many many sensible people who feel the way ChavezSpeaks feels.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

22. Coincidence.

But I'm curious. What does the PM say?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

23. PM says

that Mobuto went to school in the town I live in. That's it. Through another thread it came to light that Mobuto may have met my fiance. Just polite conversation. Thanks for the heads up Smirky. I don't want to be implicated in any shadiness. And I only share this to clear my name. I haven't even had the time to figure out what the hell you guys ar yelling at eachother about.

[AP]

25. Mobutu, remember when I posted...

...that you had said in a post a long time ago that you participated in a CIA thing for college students? You said I had a good memory. Well, you also said that you went to Wesleyan back then.

You used to buttress your credibility with LOTS of biographical details. I just happen to remember them.

[AP]

15. Neoliberalims IS fascism, by the way. And fascism ISN'T a meaningless

epithet. It describes the relationship between government, corporations and citizens. The Nazis turned it into an obvious perjorative (worse than "imperialism") but, the fact is, before Hitler came along, fascism was a theory of government which lots of people thought was legitimate. After Hitler, of course, if you want that kind of government you can no longer call it fascism and be taken seriously. Neoliberalism is a pretty adequate substitute. Just like fascism, it's the idea that citizens exist to make corporations very wealthy.

Mobutu was backed, by the way, because he was willing to let the foreign mining companies become the defacto government, in exchange for the bribes the original post describes.

Why do you think the US didn't like communism? On principle? It was because communism threatened private profit like this.

[mobuto]

16. Bullshit

So now you're calling all opponents of communism "neo-liberals?"

fascism was a theory of government which lots of people thought was legitimate.

I know what fascism is. I'm referring to the use of "fascist" as an eptithet, which, like your use of "neo-liberal" has no real meaning.

Why do you think the US didn't like communism? On principle? It was because communism threatened private profit like this.

No, the US didn't like Communism because the Soviet Union was Communist and the Soviet Union was our political rival. If the Soviet Union had been ruled by a king, the leading US sentiment would have been anti-monarchism.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

21. Furthermore, if the Soviety Union were ruled by a king...

...who was down with privatizing the benefits and socialing the costs of civil society, the US would have COOPERATED with the Soviet Union, just like we cooperate with every dictator and monarch who's down with that.

Duh.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

17. Um - what does this have to do with me, Mobuto?

I'm confused, what are we talking about here?

[AP]

24. I'd like to see M.'s evidence...

Could you post the PM to which M. refers?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

26. I don't want to post a PM

It's not that there's anything there but polite conversation but I don't feel comfortable doing it. No offense.

Frankly this is kind of pissing me off.

[AP]

27. Hey, I don't appreciate being accused of posting under two names.

Especially yours, since that would suggest that I need to buttress my credibility by inventing a second screen name with whom to engage in arguments about Venezuela.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

28. You certainly don't need that. You hold your own just fine on the merit of

your arguments, which, as always are strong.

It's not you pissing me off. I don't like having my credibility called into question. I think this is some real bullshit.

I wanted to send you a PM but your profile is disabled

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

18. I'm not Windansea/Sanity

Leave me outa this!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. I didn't tell anyone about this - you're wrong about me

you must have said it in some other post.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Poppy Strikes Gold

I was curious: What does one do with a used president? Barrick vehemently denies that it appointed Bush “in order to procure him to make contact with other world leaders whom he knows, or who could be of considerable assistance” to the company. Yet, in September 1996, Bush wrote a letter to help convince Indonesian dictator Suharto to give Barrick a new, hot gold-mining concession.

Bush’s letter seemed to do the trick. Suharto took away 68 percent of the world’s largest goldfield from the finder of the ore and handed it to Barrick. However, Bush’s lobbying magic isn’t invincible. Jim Bob Moffett, a tough old Louisiana swamp dog who heads Freeport-McMoRan, Barrick’s American rival, met privately with Suharto. When Suharto emerged from their meeting, the kleptocrat announced that Freeport would replace Bush’s Canadians. (Barrick lucked out: The huge ore deposit turned out to be a hoax. When the con was uncovered, Jim Bob’s associates invited geologist Mike de Guzman, who “discovered” the gold, to talk about the error of his ways. Unfortunately, on the way to the meeting, de Guzman fell out of a helicopter.)

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=207&row=4

[mikey_1962]

5. We used to take them in...

As long as they brought their money; but ever since the Shah of Iran we haven't done it much. Now they seem to go to African states.

[dArKeR]

6. KMT continues to be the richest political party in the world

Official Presidential website:

the KMT's conglomerate of party-owned businesses continue to hinder competitive democracy. The KMT continues to be the richest political party in the world. According to research by scholars, conservative estimates of KMT party assets figure at over 5 trillion New Taiwanese Dollars, or 16.5 billion US dollars. Furthermore, many of these assets do not originate from normal channels such as political donations and party membership fees, but are the questionable accumulation of fifty years worth of abnormal state-to-party coffers, corruption, and other unknown sources. The KMT regularly uses its sprawling network of party-managed businesses to affect the stock market, invest in venture opportunities, or support selected financially struggling companies. This phenomenon is certainly dubious and abnormal. The KMT's ability to financially steamroll its political opponents further puts to question the prospects for fair competition between political parties in local and national elections and remains detrimental to the development and well-being of Taiwan's party politics.

http://www.president.gov.tw/1_president/e_subject-042b.html

----

'World's richest party' restructures investments
http://www.geocities.com/ericvalles/tanliangan2.html

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

29. AP - you notice any missing posts? I think we've been vindicated

How 'bout you?