Sri Bintang fired from UI

JAKARTA (JP): Rebel politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas, currently serving time for defaming President Soeharto, has lost his job at the prestigious state-run University of Indonesia.

Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro confirmed yesterday that Bintang, a staff lecturer at the School of Technology since 1971, has been discharged from the university starting May 12.

The dismissal came eight days after Bintang, a former member of the House of Representatives, officially began his 34-month jail term.

Wardiman said the measure was warranted under a regulation on dismissing civil servants.

Asked by reporters if President Soeharto was consulted before the dismissal, Wardiman said: "It's none of your business."

Under the 1979 regulation, any civil servant can be dishonorably discharged if convicted for an offense punishable of up to four years imprisonment. Bintang stands to lose his pension and other entitlements under the regulation.

Bintang was found guilty by the Central Jakarta District Court in May 1996.

He was convicted for defaming the head of state -- an offense punishable of up to six years in jail -- during a series of lectures he gave in Germany in 1995. The Jakarta High Court upheld the sentence in January as did the Supreme Court in April.

Separately, Suharta, the head of the civil servants' administration bureau at the Ministry of Education and Culture said the university's rector and Bintang's family had been informed of the dismissal.

Bintang's wife, Ernalia, denied that she had been contacted by the government. "I don't know anything about my husband's discharge," she told The Jakarta Post.

Bintang lost his seat in the House of Representatives in 1995 after his United Development Party (PPP) faction disowned him for repeatedly criticizing the Armed Forces' role in politics.

Bintang had been undergoing another investigation, this time for subversion, when he was moved to the Cipinang Penitentiary on May 4 to officially begin his prison term.

His latest brush with the law came because of his activities in the Indonesian Democratic Union Party, a party he founded with other activists last year. Among the new charges brought against him was a call to boycott the May 29 general election which he inscribed in his Idul Fitri greeting cards sent out to many people, including government officials. (11)