DPR team denies visiting mass grave<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Military legislator Lt. Gen. Hari Sabarno denied
\nyesterday that a House of Representatives (DPR) fact-finding team
\nhad visited a site in Aceh, locally known as Skulls Hill,
\nreported to have been a torture chamber and mass grave used by
\nthe Armed Forces during its operations there.<\/p>\n
Antara said Hari, who led the team in a recent visit to some
\nregencies in the westernmost province, told Edmund McWilliams, a
\npolitical counsellor of the United States Embassy yesterday that
\nthe team had not visited the Skulls Hill site.<\/p>\n
\"We did visit a place suspected to be a mass grave, but we
\nfound only one grave with three victims of the military
\noperations. (The victims) were identified as members of the
\nsecurity disturbance group (GPK),\" he said.<\/p>\n
The Armed Forces stepped up security operations in the
\nprovince during the early 1990s in response to increased activity
\nby various armed groups -- collectively termed as GPK by the
\nmilitary -- struggling for an independent Aceh.<\/p>\n
He said the place which locals had called a torture chamber
\nwas actually a small building used by the Army's Special Force
\n(Kopassus) as its local headquarters. \"There were rooms there
\nwhich served as sleeping quarters for the (Kopassus) soldiers,\"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
Hari said his team's visit was not intended to verify media
\nreports about the number of victims from military operations. \"We
\nwent there to see whether there were any victims of the GPK and
\nthe military,\" he said.<\/p>\n
He admitted that the military was guilty of human rights
\nviolations in the area during 1990 and 1991. He pointed out that
\nmilitary personnel had interfered in various spheres of life,
\nincluding personal feuds and land disputes, and had manipulated
\nthe existing legal system.<\/p>\n
Responding to reports of the disappearance of thousands of
\nAcehnese during military operations in the province, Hari said
\nfurther attempts to clarify the reports were still needed.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged, though, that the military operations had
\ndisrupted the lives of the Acehnese.<\/p>\n
He said armed rebels were still active in Aceh, though their
\noperations had slowed down.<\/p>\n
The DPR team will prepare a report on its visit to Aceh, and
\nsubmit its recommendations to the government. He pointed out,
\nhowever, that Aceh was never officially declared a military
\noperations area.<\/p>\n
\"If it had been (declared), martial law would have been in
\neffect there,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Reports<\/p>\n
Several publications have dedicated large amounts of space on
\nhuman rights violations allegedly committed by military units,
\nincluding Kopassus, in Aceh during the early 1990s. Reported
\natrocities include abductions, rapes, torture and executions.<\/p>\n
The articles also described momentary elation by some over the
\nDPR fact-finding team's visit, followed by disappointment when
\nHari remarked that the visit was not meant for legal or judicial
\nreasons, but for security purposes.<\/p>\n
The weekly D&R said 1,654 people had been reported missing in
\nAceh between 1989 and 1998.<\/p>\n
The weekly Ummat put the number at 1,635.<\/p>\n
The two publications cited similar tales of horror recounted
\nby survivors or relatives of the victims of the military
\noperations. Locals, for instance, mentioned that Skulls Hill in
\nJambo Aye, North Aceh, was the mass grave of some 300 bodies.<\/p>\n
They also named Rumah Geudong in Aceh Pidie as a torture
\nchamber. Tengku Abdurrahman, a survivor, was quoted by D&R as
\nsaying that he was abducted by military personnel on suspicion of
\npossessing illegal weapons.<\/p>\n
He said he was made to strip and was beaten for three days,
\ngiven electric shocks on his genitals and ordered to dig a hole,
\nwhere he was forced to get in to be stomped on repeatedly on the
\nabdomen.<\/p>\n
A woman, identified only as SH, 32, described how she was
\nraped by a soldier in Bandar Dua district in Pidie regency.<\/p>\n
When she realized she had become pregnant, the soldier's
\nsuperior gave her Rp 500,000 and told her not to make trouble.
\nThe baby is now 14 months old.<\/p>\n
Another woman claimed to have been gang-raped by three
\nsoldiers. Yet another woman told of how her hand was broken by
\nsoldiers as her husband and four children were executed.<\/p>\n
Nyak Ubit and Aminah Ali, residents of Mutiara district, said
\ntheir husbands had been picked up by soldiers last March and had
\nyet to return.<\/p>\n
The tabloid Adil reported about a woman who was not only
\ntortured for her suspected involvement in the separatist
\nmovement, but was also made to witness her father electrocuted
\nand another woman stabbed with a stick in her genitals.<\/p>\n
Survivors and victims' relatives have indicated that the
\natrocities were committed by members of Kopassus. When Hari
\nSabarno asked several of them how they knew it was Kopassus
\npersonnel who had committed the rights violations, the residents
\nwere quoted by D&R as saying: \"We know them well.\"<\/p>\n
On July 31, student Muhammad Nur, a member of the Aceh
\nStudents for Reform (KARMA), told the Indonesian Legal Aid office
\nin Jakarta of a 1990 execution that he had witnessed in Pidie. He
\nsaid a group of soldiers wearing red headbands, carrying rifles
\ntied with red cloths, forced adult villagers to form a circle
\naround a man and a woman about to be executed.<\/p>\n
The man was then shot at point blank range, followed by the
\nwoman who was made to strip first.<\/p>\n
\"I saw that with my own eyes,\" Nur said as quoted by Adil.
\n(swe)<\/p>",
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