Fear grips Aceh as war looms

Fear grips Aceh as war looms

Nani Farida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

The country's westernmost province of Aceh is awash not only with
natural resources, but also with horrifying stories of children
being orphaned, women raped and fathers and husbands assassinated
during the military operation to quell the separatist movement in
the province from 1989 to 1998.

Traumatized by the (first) military operation, the Acehnese
have been living in fear, with many remembering once again their
grief and unhealed scars, ever since the government announced
recently that it was considering launching a second military
operation to crush the separatist movement.

Nuraisyah, a resident of Majee village in Geulumpang Minyeuk
Pidie, shivers whenever he hears the words "military operation".
His brother, Mansuriadi, was shot on Friday while playing soccer
in a football field in the village.

"There's not even a military operation yet and my brother has
been shot. He was just playing football. I can imagine all too
well what will happen if they launch another military operation
here," he said.

"We're scared right now. Soldiers regularly come into our
village to mount checkpoints," he added.

Geulumpang Minyeuk Pidie, 130 kilometers west of Banda Aceh,
the capital of Aceh province, is known as a GAM stronghold.

Nuraisyah recalled that during the first military operation,
referred to here by its Indonesian acronym DOM, corpses were left
lying in the streets of her village.

"Whenever there are lots of soldiers, there are lots of dead
bodies," she said.

"They (military) always say they are looking for GAM, but it
is unarmed civilians who die."

Iboy, a 25-year-old private sector employee, said he was
afraid the military would try to finish off the rebels quickly by
shooting people at random without considering whether they were
GAM members or civilians.

"Frankly, I'm really worried about what will happen if Aceh is
declared a military operations district (DOM). We won't be able
to move freely and we'll have a night curfew imposed as well," he
said.

GAM and the government are scheduled to hold a Joint Council
meeting in Tokyo on April 25 to evaluate the implementation of
the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement they signed in Geneva last
December.

The government has threatened to launch a military operation
should GAM continue violating the agreement, as the government
sees it.

Muhammad, 40, a resident of Simpang Lima, Banda Aceh, is also
worried about what would happen should Aceh be declared a
military operations district. Relying for his livelihood on
repairing tire punctures, he said many people would not dare to
go out at the designated times and his income would drastically
decrease if a curfew were to be imposed on the province.

"As an ordinary person, I only want security so that I can
earn money and make a living for my family," said Muhammad.

During the first military operation, men of his age had to
take part in the night watch in their villages.

"If we fell asleep (during the night watch), the soldiers
would punish us by ducking our heads in and out of a water-filled
ditch for the rest of the night," he recalled.

He called on the military and GAM to leave aside their
political interests and instead put the people's interests first
at the next meeting.

Like Muhammad, Suryana, 35, also wants to lead a peaceful
life. He is a teacher, but is forced to collect firewood in his
spare time.

"My salary is so small that I have to seek additional income,"
said Suryana, a resident of Indrapuri district, one of the areas
declared a peace zone in late February.

"Why don't they let things stay the way they are. There are no
longer any shoot-outs here, and I can go deep into the forest for
firewood."

Twenty-year old Misbah, a student of the fishing industry at
the state-run Syiah Kuala University, said he was too young to
remember the first military operation in Aceh. But he said that
he was still worried about any move to adopt a repressive
approach.

"There's no doubt that they'll be spying on us everywhere. We
won't be able to sit freely out in public like we can now," he
told The Jakarta Post on Saturday in Banda Aceh.

He expressed the hope that the Tokyo meeting would serve to
bring the two sides back to the spirit of the peace agreement,
and encourage them to continue to seek a peaceful solution to the
Aceh question. He said he fervently prayed that Aceh would not
become a war zone should the Joint Council meeting end in
deadlock.

Many families have sent members out of Aceh in preparation for
the possible military operation.

At least 7,000 human rights abuses were recorded during the
previous military operation -- obviously just the tip of the
iceberg as untold thousands of others remain buried, literally.

If any proof be needed, in the Pidie area there is a village
known as Kampung Janda, or village of the widows, which earned
its name from the many Acehnese men who were murdered there.