Less than two months prior to the MI tragedy, Singapore "gave" Indonesia 10 Billion dollars in aid, to counter an economic collapse, and to revive their flagging rupiah.
Subsequently, the then corrupt president Suharto and his cronies, were of course fully compliant with the requests from the Singapore authorities to fudge, smudge and distort the investigation into MI 185.
The money that Singapore president Goh Chok Tong gleefully handed over to Indonesia was rumoured to have come from the Central Provident fund(CPF), a retirement scheme for Singapore's workforce. The ten billion dollars has never been accounted for, nor any mention made or requested for its repayment by Indonesia. Even at the time, the "loan" was considered " much larger than expected" especially from an economy suffering its own financial hardships..
We in the West hope that the truth will be revealed. When colossal sums of money are involved in Asia, anything but is likely to be the outcome.