Aceh gets 13 new district chiefs

Aceh gets 13 new district chiefs

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh, Aceh

The Indonesian Military will stamp its territorial control on the
restive province of Aceh when 13 military officers are installed
on Monday as new district chiefs in areas known as strongholds of
the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The administration in those areas has long been abandoned
during years of armed conflict in the province.

The districts are situated in the regencies of Pidie, Bireun,
North Aceh, East Aceh, West Aceh, and Southwest Aceh. According
to the martial law administration spokesman Col. Ditya
Soedarsono, most of the 39,353 refugees are sheltered in those
districts.

From a total of 223 districts in the province, only 140 of the
districts are functioning, Ditya said on Sunday.

After 56 days of the joint operation to crush GAM rebels and
supporters, tension remained high as two civilians were killed
near their homes. The perpetrators remain unknown.

Bachtiar Musa, 58, a farmer of Dayah Panjoe hamlet, Bireuen
regency, was found dead in a banana plantation only 50 meters
from his backyard, with gunshot wounds to the head. Residents
claimed they did not hear any gun shots.

Formerly a bus driver, Bachtiar talked to reporters on
Saturday as a witness to an earlier armed conflict between the
military and GAM.

The other dead body was found in Muara Tiga district in Pidie.

According to Ditya, GAM had also burned a relay station
belonging to the state television TVRI at Bangkeh village,
Geumpang district in Pidie on Sunday.

The joint forces of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the
National Police claimed to have killed five more GAM personnel
and arrested five others on Sunday, bringing the total of rebels
shot dead to 437 and separatists arrested to 345 since martial
law was imposed in the province on May 19.

Separately in Pidie, an arrested GAM member admitted that
there was still over 200 GAM personnel in Merdu district who
possess a dozen AK-47 and M-16 rifles, as well as pistols and
other types of automatic rifles.

Arrested on July 6 by patrolling police in Grung-grung hamlet,
Meracan, in Merdu district, Razali, 37, who was suffering from
asthma, claimed that he was forced to join GAM by its Meracan
military commander Syaiful, who is a childhood friend.

"He said I could get between Rp 3,000 (around 23 US cents) and
Rp 5,000 a week if I joined them. I needed the money to cover my
medical treatment. But since I joined them in May, I only got Rp
8,000," he told reporters at Pidie Police station.

He further said that during the one-month initiation, he had
undergone three trainings and had been included in two ambushes.
"I was put in Bentara GAM (the police force of GAM's armed wing).
I had a yellow uniform with an emblem on the right sleeve. But I
was only allowed to use the uniform by Syaiful, who keeps all the
uniforms, during the ambushes," he added.

Pidie Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Malik said that the
police would deploy 11 trucks of food supplies for the residents
of the isolated Geumpang regency.

"They had run out of food because we could only send them
supplies once a month because the road to access the regency is
very dangerous, making us a sitting duck for GAM attacks," he
told reporters.