Sri Bintang and friends charged with subversion

JAKARTA (JP): Dissident politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas and two fellow leaders of the Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI) were formally charged with subversion yesterday, in part for calling on the people to boycott the May 29 general election.

Attorney General Singgih said that Bintang, Julius Usman and Saleh Abdullah were suspects in an official investigation into their political activities in recent months.

The call to boycott the election was not the only offense they had committed, Singgih said. "They are also being detained because of other PUDI activities, including its demand to revise the 1945 Constitution."

The three men went to the Attorney General's Office in South Jakarta Wednesday to answer an invitation to explain their behavior. They never left the building.

Several government and military figures and legislators debated this week the ethics of Bintang's Idul Fitri card, which was sent to many senior government officials, including Vice President Try Sutrisno.

The card contained PUDI's three-point agenda: boycott the 1997 election, reject President Soeharto's reelection, and prepare for a post-Soeharto era after 1998.

In the card, Bintang quoted a verse from the Koran which said that God would not change people's fate if they did not want to change.

Singgih denied the reports that the arrests were made in response to growing public pressure.

The Attorney General's Office has apparently been preparing the case for some time but it only made its move this week after collecting enough evidence to press charges. "I gave the order to watch PUDI as soon as it was founded," he said.

Bintang and his colleagues formed PUDI in May 1996 to challenge the legality of the current three-party political system.

Bintang is already facing a 34-month-jail sentence for insulting President Soeharto. He has remained a free man pending his appeal in the Supreme Court.

The Association of Indonesian Legal and Human Rights Assistance immediately called for the release of Bintang and his two friends, saying they could not be prosecuted for their political views.

"Differences in political views should be settled in a political forum, not in a court," executive director Hendardi said.

The Attorney General's office yesterday also questioned 78- year old Subadio Sastrosatomo, a former leader of the defunct Indonesian Socialist Party and a parliamentarian in the 1950s, in connection with a 22-page book he wrote.

The government has already banned the book, New Era, New Leader: Badio Rejects the New Order Regime's Engineering because it believes the content could provoke unrest and create negative public opinion of the government.

"It is inappropriate for an old grandpa to publish a book that could stir public unrest," Singgih said. (imn/05)