Honored guests that threw the party into disarray<\/p>\n
Text by Pandaya, photos by Arief Suhardiman<\/p>\n
LHOKSEUMAWE, Aceh (JP): The Armed Forces combat troops were
\ntreated like special guests when they arrived in Aceh in 1991 but
\nseen off like unwelcomed monsters for the atrocities they
\nallegedly committed in the province.<\/p>\n
At the start of the troops' withdrawal from Aceh on Aug. 20,
\nBukit Barisan Regional military command chief Maj. Gen. Ismed
\nYusairi said the Armed Forces (ABRI) had three combat battalions
\nof 2,172 personnel.<\/p>\n
Although the troops deployed here consisted of personnel from
\ndifferent units, many Aceh people who suffered under the Red Net
\nOperation, launched in 1991, laid the blame for the atrocities
\nlargely on the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) soldiers.<\/p>\n
The National Commission on Human Rights, which twice sent a
\nfact-finding team to the province, did not point its finger at
\nany particular unit in the Armed Forces, and only attributed the
\natrocities to the state \"apparatus\".<\/p>\n
It was the then Aceh governor, Ibrahim Hasan, who asked for
\nthe elite red berets following escalating armed Free Aceh
\nMovement rebellions between 1989, when the territory was declared
\na Military Operation Area, and 1991, after the insurgents killed
\n20 soldiers and seized 21 assault rifles.<\/p>\n
\"I have invited the country's best sons and daughters from
\nJakarta to help restore order in Aceh,\" he said at the time,
\ncalling on Acehnese to serve their \"guests\" properly.<\/p>\n
\"Give them rice when they are hungry and coconut water when
\nthirsty,\" said Ibrahim, who also served as agriculture minister
\nin the authoritarian Soeharto's regime. \"Just like in a grand
\nparty, it would certainly be acceptable if one or two dozen
\nplates and cups are broken.\"<\/p>\n
The supposedly respectable special guests turned nasty. Not
\nonly did the guests smash plates and cups without reasons but
\nallegedly also harassed, killed and raped the hosts.<\/p>\n
Activists and politicians recently pressured Jakarta to stop
\nthe \"party\", which has turned out to be intolerably expensive,
\nwith thousands of people believed to have died and too many
\n\"plates and cups\" broken beyond repair.<\/p>\n
What did Ibrahim have to say after the \"party\" was abruptly
\nstopped? \"Many people have been killed because ABRI was there for
\ntoo long,\" he said in an interview with Republika daily.<\/p>\n
Led by Hasan Tiro from Pidie, the Free Aceh Movement armed
\nrebellion started in 1978. An insurgency that was aimed at
\nturning Aceh into an Islamic state symbolized the locals'
\nrejection of Jakarta's unjust policy on the province. The people
\ncharged that Jakarta plundered their natural wealth and left them
\nto live in poverty.<\/p>\n
ABRI managed to suppress the uprising. Tiro, now in his 80s,
\nand his key followers, fled to Europe.<\/p>\n
There are different versions concerning his whereabouts, with
\nsome saying he is in Sweden and others saying he is in Austria.
\nHe retains his command and leads the secessionist activity from
\nexile. Tiro has reportedly broadened his command base to include
\nEurope, Middle East and Malaysia.<\/p>\n
But some critics doubt Tiro's role in the insurgency because
\nhe never appears in any public forum on Aceh.<\/p>\n
\"His name may have been used to justify the military
\noperations in Aceh,\" said one observer.<\/p>\n
Free Aceh Movement rebels stepped up their activities in 1989,
\nand only after bringing in a large number of troops could ABRI
\nquash the guerrillas it believed were trained and obtained arms
\noverseas.<\/p>\n
According to Amnesty International, about 2,000 people were
\nkilled between 1989 and 1991.<\/p>\n
The movement suffered a major blow in 1990, when Yusuf A.B.,
\nits Pasai governor, was killed in northern Aceh. It received
\nanother defeat in 1993 when Kopassus troops shot and killed Umar
\nIbrahim, chief of the movement's Free Aceh Islamic State command
\ncenter.<\/p>\n
In the subsequent mopping up operations, thousands of
\nproindependent activists and people suspected of supporting the
\nmovement were arrested, killed or went missing, human rights
\ngroups said.<\/p>\n
Among the well-known political prisoners is Nurdin
\nAbdurrachman, a lecturer at Banda Aceh's Syah Kuala University.
\nHe was arrested in 1990, and in the following year, sentenced to
\n13 years in jail for subversion.<\/p>\n
His fellow teacher, Hasbi Abdullah, was also arrested in 1990
\nand put in jail for 20 years on the same charges. Serambi
\nIndonesia journalist Adnan Beuransyah got nine year in 1990 on
\ncharges of \"collecting information\" for the movement.<\/p>\n
In the same year, food vendor Imran Hasan was sent to jail for
\nseven years on charges of making his coffee stall available for
\nmovement sympathizers to discuss their plans.<\/p>\n
At present, about 50 suspected Free Aceh Movement activists
\nare in jail. They were sentenced to between eight years and 20
\nyears for their political belief.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups said they were checking into reports that
\ndozens of villagers suspected of supporting the movement are
\nstill held in detention centers in hot spot areas such as
\nLhokseumawe, despite the fact that Kopassus has been (partly)
\nwithdrawn.<\/p>\n
Common people in Aceh said they welcomed the government's
\nrecent announcement to lift the Military Operation Area status
\nbut they want to see if Jakarta is sincere or if the military
\noppression remains.<\/p>\n
\"Now we can do our daily routines and openly discuss the
\natrocities without fear,\" said Thalib, a farmer among thousands
\nof villagers who witnessed the excavation of a mass grave in
\nPidie.<\/p>\n
\"In the past,\" he said with a smile, pointing at a deserted
\nmansion formerly used as a detention center, \"your life may have
\nended in a painful death in that rumoh geudong if you dared to
\nspeak of repression.\"<\/p>",
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