Aceh authorities act to avert weekend mass rally

Aceh authorities act to avert weekend mass rally

BANDA ACEH, Aceh (JP): At least one youth was killed and 17
others, including two police officers, were wounded when security
troops opened fire to prevent Acehnese who had gathered from
across the troubled province from entering the capital city for
the weekend mass rally.

A witness, Zainal Arifin, said the police shot at a group of
youths who were about to join other Banda Aceh-bound residents of
Idi village in East Aceh.

"They were just unarmed teenagers," Zainal said.

Chief of East Aceh Police precinct Supt. Abdullah Hayati
denied the arbitrary shooting, saying the group of youths were
armed and initiated the skirmish with the police.

As of Wednesday, some 10,000 Idi residents, along with
hundreds of trucks, were stranded in their village as police
blocked traffic heading for the rally from the outlying districts
of East Aceh and Pidie. Similar crowds were also seen massing in
other areas, ready to move into Banda Aceh.

Another incident broke out in Langsa village near the East
Aceh police station on Wednesday leaving a police officer and a
resident of the village wounded.

Separately, two residents from Tangse village in the Pidie
regency, some 150 kilometers from Banda Aceh, were injured when
police prevented two truckloads of villagers from streaming into
Banda Aceh.

The mass gathering is slated to be held on Saturday at the
Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh to commemorate the first
anniversary of the public call for a referendum on self-
determination for Aceh. A mass prayer will precede the rally on
Friday, also in the mosque.

Some one million people gathered in and around the same mosque
last year to demand the referendum. President Abdurrahman Wahid
dismissed the call and instead vowed to precipitate the
implementation of a special autonomy status for the natural
resource-rich province.

Banda Aceh was reportedly calm on Wednesday, with no public
operations in service and many traders closing their shops early.

Efforts to hamper Acehnese from joining the gathering went too
far with witnesses saying that police also beat up two Syiah
Kuala University students when they, along with their colleagues,
innocently passed in front of the nearby Police Mobile Brigade
unit office in Lingke village.

Barbed wire barricades have been set up in the streets of
Banda Aceh and reinforcements have been dispatched along Krueng
Aceh river as thousands of Acehnese are trying to reach the city
by boat.

In his letter to the National Police Chief Gen. Surojo
Bimantoro dated Nov. 8, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid and
Human Rights Association (PBHI) Hendardi condemned the police's
stern actions in preventing the Acehnese from attending the mass
gathering.

In Jakarta, some 1,500 Acehnese living across Java staged a
street rally on Wednesday, picketing the United Nations mission
and later the United States and British embassies, to press for
international intervention in Aceh. (50/lup/dja)