No mercy. That is President Abdurrahman Wahid’s increasingly strident war cry in his campaign to root out alleged crooks and cronies of the Suharto years, accused of siphoning off vast sums in Indonesian state funds.

As Gus Dur’s own image gets worse, like a cornered tiger his counter-strikes get more and more ferocious. And it is producing some limited results. Former mines and energy minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita, a suspect in a