AT the end of last week, hundreds of ordinary soldiers demonstrated in Salemba, Central Jakarta. It was an unusual sight. They were demanding the return of down payments they had paid for houses that were never built. There were signs of a swindle. What made the whole story pitiful was that the houses in question were not large, but type-27 dwellings, the smallest model.

If only those poor privates and sergeants knew how much money had been