1 August 2000

Minister of Foreign Affairs
Parliament Buildings
Wellington

THE SUHARTOS’ NEW ZEALAND ASSETS

Dear Mr Goff,

We note with approval that the Government is contemplating legislation that would enable it to seize New Zealand-based assets of Fiji coup participants. If it’s good enough for George Speight and his merry bunch of drunken thugs, then it’s definitely good enough for the infinitely worse Suharto family and their cronies. They hijacked democracy for decades, committed mass murder, and stole billions from the long suffering peoples of Indonesia and East Timor.

Can you please tell us where things are at in relation to any inquiry into, and seizure of, New Zealand assets held by the Suhartos and their cronies? Has the Indonesian government yet asked for New Zealand’s assistance? Are there any moves by the New Zealand government to pass laws to enable the seizure of these assets?

Our campaign has gained urgency because of the murder and mutilation of Private Manning in East Timor. This brutal killing bears all the hallmarks of Indonesia’s Kopassus special forces, or those trained by them. General Prabowo Subianto, the immediate past Kopassus commander, is married to Suharto’s daughter, Titiek, who owned chalets in Queenstown (she is alleged to have sold them to an Indonesian company that she controls). It is intolerable that such a man, who is, in a very real sense, an enemy of New Zealand, should be allowed to own property in this country. That killing was an act of war – the people responsible for the past and present agony of East Timor are the Suhartos and cronies. Why are we allowing them to continue to own real estate, land and companies in New Zealand? It wouldn’t be contemplated if it involved Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. Nor George Speight. The Suhartos are as bad as, if not much worse, than any of them. They should be rooted out of our country, and the proceeds of their seized assets returned to the Indonesian and East Timorese people, as some mall compensation for the horrific crimes committed against them.

Yours sincerely,

Murray Horton Secretary/Organiser

CAFCA Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa PO Box 2258, Christchurch email: cafca@chch.planet.org.nz

© Scoop Media