Amien's resignation a matter of prestige

JAKARTA (JP): Amien Rais relinquished his top slot in the Association of Indonesian Moslems Intellectuals (ICMI) last week because of pressures from within the Muhammadiyah organization he chairs, it was claimed yesterday.

Amien resigned from ICMI's Council of Experts on the Muhammadiyah Youth Association's recommendation last November, said the youth wing organization leader, Hajriyanto Y. Tohari.

Hajriyanto told reporters the youth wing advised Amien to resign after he was publicly scolded by an ICMI top executive for an unknown reason.

"We then asked Pak Amien to quit his post in ICMI," he said. "We couldn't accept such treatment. We thought the incident had hurt Muhammadiyah's pride."

A plenary meeting led by organization chairman B.J. Habibie decided Monday to "accept" Amien's resignation as chairman of the association's Council of Experts.

Habibie said Amien had asked to resign from his post last year on the grounds that his heavy Muhammadiyah workload had made it difficult for him to function effectively in ICMI.

He denied allegations that Amien was forced to resign because of his critical stance on several government policies, including the activities of the giant American mining company PT Freeport Indonesia in Irian Jaya and the planned Busang gold mining operation in East Kalimantan.

"By the same token, we would have asked Amien to resign from Gadjah Mada University if he had been scolded by its rector," Hajriyanto said.

Amien is a politics lecturer at the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University.

Amien said yesterday Muhammadiyah would propose Malik Fadjar and Fuad Bawazier to step into his shoes at ICMI.

Malik is Muhammadiyah's coordinator for human resources and cultural development and Director General for Institutional Supervision at the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Fuad is Director General of Taxation at the Ministry of Finance.

Habibie has said that it has been decided that Amien's successor will come from Muhammadiyah. He named Fuad Bawazier, who is also a member of ICMI's board of advisors, as a likely candidate. (imn)