SPECIAL REPORT:
LIPPO-SUCTIONBecause the latest Clinton scandal is so confusing, we are providing readers with a brief Who's Who in Lippo-Suction to help follow the story in the days ahead.
ARKANSAS INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION: Set up by C. JOSEPH GIROIR JR. to do business with LIPPO in Indonesia and China.
BILL CLINTON: What foreign campaign money? Let me tell you about the economy . . . .
HILLARY CLINTON: Wife of the President, former partner of the ROSE LAW FIRM and former board member of Wal- Mart.
EAST TIMOR: An occupied territory of Indonesia where roughly one third of the people have been slaughtered by Indonesian troops over the past 20 years. As a candidate BILL CLINTON said of East Timor, "I think we have ignored it in ways that I think are unconscionable." Then during his presidency, Clinton approved more than $470 million in arms sales to the Indonesian regime. (Senator Dole in 1994 helped to kill a bill that would have barred the use of US- supplied weapons in East Timor.)
FIRST NATIONAL BANK of Mena: This bank, in the tiny town now best known its Contra arms supply, drug running and money-laundering operation, was purchased by MOCHTAR and JAMES RIADY.
C. JOSEPH GIROIR JR.: ROSE LAW FIRM partner, board member of the WORTHEN BANK, and the man who hired HILLARY CLINTON. Set up the ARKANSAS INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION to do joint ventures with the LIPPO GROUP. Brokered dealings between LIPPO and Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart and Jim Tucker, Arkansas governor and cable TV franchise operator. Current plans include a $1 billion power plant in China. The backwoods Arkansas airport approved by the Clinton administration was to be used to ship Tyson chickens to Indonesia.
JOHN HUANG: Formerly a LIPPO GROUP executive in Little Rock, later a high Commerce Department official, until recently with the Democratic National Committee. Solicited the contribution of ARIEF WIRIADINATA. Also responsible for the Democratic Party fund-raiser at the HSI LAI BUDDHIST TEMPLE near LA. Also was vice chair of the LIPPO BANK until he joined the Commerce Dept. in 1994.
WEBSTER HUBBELL: ROSE LAW FIRM partner who -- although not known for skill in Asian trade matters -- went to work for a LIPPO GROUP affiliate after being forced out of the Clinton administration and before going to jail. He was paid a reported $250,000. Was asked at a Senate hearing by the majority counsel: "I guess the question is really this, it is whether, in connection with this representation, you received a large amount of money and that may have had an impact on the degree of your cooperation with the Independent Counsel or with us?" Hubbell responded, "That's pretty rotten" and chair Al D'Amato changed the subject. Hubbell represented both WORTHEN and JAMES RIADY during the 1980s.
BERT LANCE: Georgia financier and Jimmy Carter's budget director. Old friend of JACKSON STEPHENS. Later embroiled in BCCI scandal. LIPPO BANK: a California Bank owed by the RIADY family. In 1994, federal regulators, according to the New York Times, found evidence that the bank had violated "laws and/or regulations" and that it needed tighter controls to prevent money laundering. The order against the bank was lifted this March.
LIPPO GROUP: Huge Indonesian conglomerate -- estimated assets are $6 billion -- that is curiously ubiquitous in the affairs of BILL CLINTON and friends. Began doing business in Arkansas in 1983 with the help of a SBA loan of $2 million. To get the loan, Lippo named an American -- recently departed Carter SBA administrator Vernon Weaver -- to front as chairman of the Little Rock subsidiary. Weaver used then-governor Clinton as a character reference to obtain the SBA money.
HSI LAI BUDDHIST TEMPLE: This temple was mysteriously chosen by JOHN HUANG as the site for a major Democratic National Committee fund-raiser. According to the Washington Post, "Several people named in official DNC reports as having contributed $2,000 to $5,000 at the fund-raiser were listed with addresses at or adjacent to the temple. Both the DNC and Peter D. Kelly, the attorney for the temple said Wednesday that those donors were monks and other religious personnel at the temple." The temple abbess, Tzu Jung, said the temple only provided the site and that monks and nuns "do not have that kind of money." She, however, is listed as one of the donors under her other name, Su-Jen Wu. The Wall Street Journal reported that another woman had been approached at the time of the fund-raiser, given $5000 in small bills and asked to write a check for that amount to the DNC.
MOCHTAR RIADY: One of Indonesia's ten billionaires and a member of that country's powerful Chinese ethnic minority. The Riady family and related interests have given nearly $1 million to the Democratic Party. Close to SUHARTO. The New York Times reports that he has been used as a "back channel" to President Suharto on East Timor. Bought $16 million worth of stock in the WORTHEN BANK and installed his son JAMES RIADY as a director. With JACKSON STEPHENS, he bought BCCI's former Hong Kong subsidiary from its liquidators in 1991. Also a major investor in the LIPPO GROUP, an Indonesian conglomerate that made a major investment in the Stephens family's WORTHEN BANK of Arkansas. (Readers of the hard-copy edition of The Progressive Review will find Riady's name in the lower left corner of the 1992 Arkansas Flow Chart reprinted in the current issue.)
JAMES RIADY: MOCHTAR RIADY's son, who became an official of WORTHEN BANK. Came to Little Rock as an intern in 1977 at the STEPHENS family's investment firm, Stephens Inc. He said he was "sponsored" by Bill Clinton although other accounts have Stephens officials inviting him to come as an intern. Gave at least $175,000 to the Clinton Inaugural Committee. Now living in Indonesia.
JACKSON STEPHENS: was board chair of WORTHEN during the period when the bank provided BILL CLINTON's 1992 presidential primary campaign with a multi-million dollar line of credit that enabled the Clinton effort to stay afloat. Described at the time by the New York Post as a man who was to "Clinton what BERT LANCE was to candidate Jimmy Carter." Got to know MOCHTAR RIADY in 1977 when Riady was considering buying BERT LANCE's interest in the National Bank of Georgia. That year, according to Alexander Cockburn, Stephens had "brokered the arrival" of BCCI to this country, and steered BCCI's founder, Hassan Abedi, to Lance -- whose bank a BCCI front man -- Ghaith Pharaon -- eventually took over. Stephens in 1991 joined Mochtar Riady in the purchase of a BCCI subsidiary in Hong Kong.
ARIEF WIRIADINATA: Came to the US from Indonesia allegedly to study landscape architecture -- although some accounts describe him simply as a gardener. Somehow seems to have become distracted by campaign finance. Gave nearly a half million dollars to the Democratic Party. His wife is the daughter of a man who was a key business partner of the RIADYs. Wiriadinata is now back home, reportedly working for Sea World Indonesia.
WORTHEN BANK: See JACKSON STEPHENS & MOCHTAR RIADY