Almost 200 officials killed in Aceh

BANDA ACEH, Aceh: At least 197 subdistrict officials have been killed in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province since 1998, when a separatist insurgency began to intensify in the province.

An official with the civil emergency administration in Aceh, Sofyanis, claimed on Saturday that these government officials had been killed by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Besides the 197 officials killed, 104 had been permanently incapacitated and 15 others had gone missing, said Sofyanis, the deputy director of the civil emergency administration in the province.

GAM has been waging a guerrilla war since 1970 in Aceh, but the group intensified its struggle in 1998 following the demise of Soeharto's iron-fisted regime. The Indonesian government declared martial law in the province last year in an effort to wipe out the rebels, but the province's status was lowered to a state of civil emergency in May of this year after GAM's operations had been significantly curtailed by the Indonesian military operations in the province. -- Antara