A clean war in Aceh
A clean war in Aceh
If Lothar and Elisabeth Engel had been Acehnese, few people
would have heard about them or their fate. If they had been
Acehnese, Lothar Engel would have been just one of the 150 or so
local people Indonesian soldiers have shot in the name of the
security operation in Aceh. His wounded wife would have been
among the hundreds of nameless Acehnese treated at some poorly
equipped community health center in Aceh. Like all the other
Acehnese casualties, we would have heard nothing about them.
The Engels have not become just another military statistic
because they are the first foreign casualties in this senseless
war between the Indonesian government and the separatist Free
Aceh Movement (GAM), now in its fourth week. The couple had been
traveling through Aceh, part of their globe-trotting adventure by
bicycle. They were shot by Indonesian soldiers on Wednesday night
while they were camping on a beach on Aceh's west coast.
Because they are German, their story drew international
attention. And the Indonesian government duly apologized and
ordered the Aceh martial law administrator to promptly launch an
investigation into the incident. The German Embassy in Jakarta
sent a team to make some inquiries about the shooting and the
probe.
Although the Engels had no business in the strife-torn
province, and they should have known better, the incident
deserves a full investigation if only to learn about the
circumstances of the shooting.
The military's preliminary investigation determined that the
soldiers followed proper procedures before opening fire on the
tent where the couple had been sleeping. Investigators determined
that it was a misunderstanding, and Elisabeth Engel, in a written
statement (assuming she wrote it voluntarily and not under
duress), said she accepted that this was an accident and that the
soldiers were not culpable.
Most Acehnese civilians who have been killed or wounded during
the current security campaign are lucky even to have their names
mentioned in the military statistics. As far as the government,
the military and the Indonesian public are concerned, they have
all been reduced to just numbers.
They are faceless and nameless statistics. There are no
impartial investigations conducted on their behalf and no
international scrutiny like that afforded the Engels.
Most likely, all of the killed Acehnese civilians have been
lumped together into the GAM category, sparing the government the
need to undertake any kind of investigation. After all, this is a
war, and in war some collateral damage is inevitable.
The government's campaign in Aceh, combining military
operations, humanitarian assistance, restoration of government
services and law enforcement, entered its fourth week on Monday.
The Indonesian Military (TNI), which is leading the campaign,
said that as of Sunday, 150 separatists had been killed and more
than 180 rebels had either surrendered or been captured, and 50
weapons had been seized. TNI had lost 13 of its soldiers.
What is missing from these statistics is the number of unarmed
civilians killed during the campaign, or what is now popularly
referred to as collateral damage. This is largely because as far
as the TNI is concerned, just about everyone fired upon by its
soldiers is a GAM rebel or supporter.
Everyone, that is, except the Engels.
Are we really to believe that TNI's campaign has been so clean
that it has not left a single civilian dead except for the
Engels?
If this is the case, then TNI deserves all praise.
As much as we would like to believe that this is true, the few
investigations about supposed wrongdoings and the deaths of
unarmed civilians have all been carried out by the TNI, not by an
independent body.
The TNI was forced to open an investigation when the media
reported the unusual circumstances surrounding the deaths of 10
villagers, including a 13-year-old boy, in Bireuen.
The results of that probe essentially refuted media claims of
summary executions, determining that while the villagers were not
armed at the time of their deaths, they were all GAM members,
including the young boy.
The military also held an impromptu trial last week for seven
soldiers accused of assaulting civilians. But this was a tribunal
in which the prosecutors and the judges were all men and women in
uniform.
Everyone, including those of us who opposed the military
option in the first place, are rooting for a quick and clean war
in Aceh that will spare the populace any more suffering and
misery. But in order for the military to gain any credibility
about its record in Aceh to date, it must allow independent
organizations to conduct their own investigations there, or at
the very least, to verify those probes already conducted by the
military.