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.