Apr.11, 2010, 3:23 PM

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, noting the general public's fury following revelations of massive corruption within the Directorate General of Taxation and a major network of big-case brokers, has ordered law enforcers to take tougher measures to clean up the tax office and eliminate judicial corruption.

Yudhoyono said Wednesday he was burnt by the case of Gayus Tambunan, a junior tax auditor who was charged with taking bribes and laundering US$3.08 million (Rp 28 billion) but was acquitted of all charges by colluding with the police, prosecutors and judges at Tangerang District Court.

As Tambunan's investigations revealed there were 13 more corrupt tax officials like him, the President ordered his Anti-Judiciary Mafia Taskforce to help hunt down and catch bigger fish within the tax corruption network.

State corruption was again in the spotlight after the chief of the financial intelligence unit (PPATK) Yunus Husein dropped a bomb earlier Tuesday. Husein said he had reported in March 2009 suspicious transactions through the bank accounts of a retired senior tax official involving a sum of many times larger than Tambunan's $2.8 million.

The National Police, which began investigating the case only this week (more than a year after PPATK made the report), identified the owner of the bank accounts as Bahasyim Assifie, formerly a chief tax inspector for Jakarta. Assifie, his wife and son allegedly held about $7 million (Rp 70 billion) in their bank accounts.

As the incidence of corruption remained persistently high despite the President's declaration of an escalated war against graft, the government tossed about the idea of much harsher punishments for people found guilty of corruption, including the seizure of graft convicts' assets and even capital punishment.

Meanwhile, heads started to roll at the Attorney General's Office after investigations uncovered irregularities in prosecutors' handling of Tambunan's corruption and money laundering case.

Senior prosecutor Cirus Sinaga, who was only recently promoted to assistant for special crimes investigation to the chief of the Central Java High Prosecutors' Office, and Poltak Manullang, a newly-appointed chief of the Maluku High Prosecutors' Office, were removed from their operational positions.

Earlier last week, senior police officer Brig. Gen. Edmond Ilyas was removed from his position as Lampung Police chief and several other mid-level police officers were suspended for their alleged involvement in the judicial corruption that enabled Tambunan to be acquitted of all charges of corruption and money laundering.

Another major earthquake, measuring magnitude 7.8 struck off the coast of Aceh in north-western Indonesia early Wednesday, triggering panic and causing blackouts, no deaths were reported and a tsunami alert was later lifted.

The quake, which was also felt in North and West Sumatra, struck 75 kilometers southeast of Sinabang but only caused several sections of roads to crack, damaged a number of houses and injured several people.

Neighboring Thailand and Malaysia also lifted initial tsunami warnings. Five aftershocks hit after the initial quake, the largest a 5.5 magnitude tremor.

In December 2004, a 9.3-magnitude quake off Aceh triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed about 226,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.

In Bali, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) on Thursday threw out of the window any sense of accountability by reappointing Megawati Soekarnoputri as chairwoman, even though she led the party to its second successive election defeat last year.

Rather than making way for young blood, Megawati hand-picked her henchmen and sycophants to hold most positions at the central executive board, a move many analysts foresaw could cost the party dearly in the 2014 general elections.

Most other political organizations that pursue the principle of democracy would change their leadership immediately after losing an election. But Megawati stubbornly stood her ground with her record of two losses in the 2004 and 2009 general elections.

The PDIP gained 34 percent of voters in 1999, Indonesia's first democratic election after the fall of authoritarian Soeharto in May 1998, but its gain fell to 18 percent in 2004 and down further to only 14 percent in 2009.

There seems to be nobody within the party leadership courageous enough to tell Megawati that she has become a liability, rather than an asset, for the party's future.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva canceled Thursday a trip to attend the ASEAN Summit in Hanoi as thousands of antigovernment protesters massed in the streets of central Bangkok, defying the state of emergency the government declared a day earlier.

Abhisit had called on the protesters to disperse after a group of them forced their way into Parliament but promised he would not use force to break up the demonstrations, which have continued for almost a month.

The emergency decree allows the authorities to suspend certain civil liberties and to censor the news media. By Thursday, the government had blocked several Websites and a television station associated with the protesters, known as Red Shirts, who have called on Abhisit to step down and hold new elections.

Protest leaders said they planned even larger crowds to gather in Bangkok's central commercial district, where they have forced the closing of shopping malls, hotels and banks since last Saturday.