If you haven’t had the pleasure yet of shopping at a Wal-Mart in Jakarta, Indonesia, don’t worry. It looks like Wal-Mart isn’t going anywhere for awhile. It appears that judges in a West Jakarta District Court have ordered Wal-Mart not to allow its 12 American employees to leave the country until an Indonesian company’s lawsuit against Wal-Mart is settled. Multipolar Corp, a top retail chain in Indonesia, and a joint venture partner of Wal-Mart’s, has sued the Arkansas company charging that Wal-Mart mismanaged its two stores there and made misleading projections that caused Multipolar to lose close to $50 million. The Indonesian judges ordered Wal-Mart to continue running the 2 stores, and barred them from firing any of its Indonesian workers. The next hearing is not until April 23, so you have plenty of time left to get your cheap underwear in Indonesia. Although Multipolar says it lost money, Wal-Mart is boasting that its international sales increased nearly three-fold to $177 million.
The Multipolar group is a division of the Lippo group, which is a company well known by the Clinton Adminstration. Write to President Clinton and urge him to “free the Wal-Mart Dozen” from the grips of the Indonesian government.
