Lecturers plan massive strike over Arief's firing

SALATIGA (JP): Teachers from several schools in the conflict- ridden Satya Wacana University plan to strike to dramatize their demand that Professor Arief Budiman, who was sacked last week, be reinstated.

They said yesterday they had yet to determine when they would act because they needed time to ask students to line up behind them. "We need students to make the industrial action more effective," Limson, one of the instructors, said.

The schools which have agreed to go on strike are those of theology, development studies, law, electronics, science and teachers training, Limson said.

On Tuesday, dozens of students and teachers demonstrated their opposition to the surprising dismissal of Arief, who is well known as a staunch critic of the government.

The university management fired Arief, an outspoken American- educated sociologist, on the grounds that he had ignored various warnings since 1988. The latest offense he committed was to write an article about the worsening conflict on the campus, which was published in a Jakarta-based newspaper, university leaders said.

George Junus Aditjondro, one of Arief's fellow teachers at the university, said students and teachers were bracing for "civil disobedience" to seek Arief's reinstatement.

Nico L. Kana, chief of the university's post graduate programs, said the dismissal was a blow because Arief supervises the thesis writing of many graduate students.

"Everyone was surprised to hear of his dismissal. I'm sad. Why did the management not consult us before firing him?" he asked.

Arief said he refused to accept his dismissal because there were flaws in the management's reasoning. He said he would continue working even after Nov. 1, the deadline he was given to pack up and leave the university. (har/pan)