Acehnese seek justice over atrocities

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)