Acehnese seek justice over atrocities

JAKARTA (JP): Acehnese public figures joined forces yesterday to pressure the government to uncover atrocities the Armed Forces (ABRI) allegedly committed since 1989 against suspected separatist rebels.

The Solidarity Committee for the Respect of Human Rights in Aceh was created with the aim of cooperating with other human rights groups independently investigating the atrocities.

The committee is demanding the government to investigate and take punitive action against anyone believed to have committed violations during the eight year military operation which claimed thousands of civilian lives.

Founded by the association of Aceh migrants in Greater Jakarta, Taman Iskandar Muda, the committee vowed to help the victims' relatives seek justice.

"The government should offer compensation to relatives of those killed during the operation and restore the respectability of their names," committee chairman Amran Zamzami said.

The group alleged that thousands of people perished or disappeared and scores of women were raped during the operation aimed at suppressing Free Aceh Movement activists seeking to turn the province into an independent Islamic state.

"I have just heard that a rape victim gave birth to a child very recently," said committee member Hasballah MS. "The woman is so distressed she doesn't know how to describe her feelings."

Amran said the committee considered sponsoring a dialog within Aceh's community to reconcile various political views.

Although ABRI has decided to lift Aceh's military operations status, the psychological wounds the military inflicted on the locals is too serious to be healed without justice being upheld, he added.

Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto recently apologized to the Aceh people for military atrocities which occurred in Pidie, North and East Aceh from 1989 to 1998.

Other noted Acehnese figures in the committee include Ismail Suny, a prominent constitutional law expert and former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Ismail Hasan Metareum, a House of Representatives speaker. Both are on the committee's board of advisers.

Committee officials said the group would open its doors to people from other ethnic backgrounds concerned with the widespread violations of human rights in the westernmost territory.

Actress Christine Hakim, who stared in a famous film about Aceh heroine Cut Nya Dien, and film director Eros Djarot -- both non-Acehnese -- have expressed their interest to help the committee, Hasballah said.

Ismail Suny said that like in Irian Jaya, separatist rebellions in Aceh had stemmed from government policy which returned too little of the proceeds from the province's natural wealth to the locals.

Local governments, he said, have no autonomy to manage their districts.

"A federal state is a possibility, but even if it is not possible right now, provinces could be run like a federal state in that they could be given greater autonomy," said the rector of the Muhammadiyah University.

Aceh is rich in natural resources. According to the committee, annual natural gas exports from the province are worth US$2.6 billion (Rp 33 trillion), much higher than its 1998/1999 provincial budget of Rp 150 billion.

Graves

Separately, Abdul Gani Nurdin, head of the newly established Human Rights Forum for Aceh, said here yesterday that at least three places had been widely reported by local residents as being mass grave sites of people killed in the military operations.

He said independent groups had yet to explore the sites, pointing out that military units continued to patrol the areas in which they were located.

These sites are located in Simpang Palang, Pereulak subdistrict in East Aceh regency, Surkee, Lhok Sukon subdistrict in North Aceh regency and Teumanah, Tringgadeng subdistrict in Pidie regency.

All three regencies fall under the domain of the Lilawangsa Military Resort.

"We still cannot carry out field investigation as long as military personnel are still roaming the area," Gani told a media conference at the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) in Central Jakarta.

One resident of East Aceh, brought to Jakarta by Gani, said that residents in those areas remained fearful of revealing their experiences.

"Up to now, the witnesses (of the atrocities) in those areas are still terrorized by the military," Abdullah Nurdin claimed. (pan/byg)