GAM suspects killed in fresh attack
GAM suspects killed in fresh attack
Associated Press, Banda Aceh, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam
The Indonesia military (TNI) shot and killed seven men it
identified as separatist rebels during an ambush in the eastern
part of the war-torn province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, an
army spokesman said on Sunday.
More than 900 suspected members of the Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) have been killed since the government abandoned a five-
month truce in May and launched a large-scale military offensive
there.
Military personnel in the east of the province recovered six
bodies on Saturday from the scene of a battle a day earlier, said
spokesman for the Aceh military operation Lt. Col. Ahmad Yani
Basuki.
Also in East Aceh, a rebel died in a gunfight on Saturday.
Soldiers confiscated an AK-47 assault rifle from the victim, he
said.
Despite the greater number of GAM members captured, the
military thus far has confiscated only 363 weapons from the
rebels, fueling speculation that government troops have been
targeting civilians in their purge against members of the
separatist movement.
Thus far, the so named "integrated operation" in Aceh has
taken its toll in the death of 304 civilians and 140 others
injured.
On the offensive side, the military has also lost 35 soldiers
and six police personnel, with hundreds other injured.
Earlier, in an assessment of the four-month-old military
operation, TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto claimed that
government troops deployed in the strife-torn province had
significantly sapped the strength of GAM.
Endriartono said after four months of an incessant military
offensive, GAM members had been pushed to remote forested areas,
preventing them from causing security disturbances to civilians,
including the collection of the so-called Nanggroe taxes from
local people.
He declined to speculate on the current number of GAM rebels.
The military chief merely said that their number might have
been reduced or increased.
The military has been accused of exaggerating its successes
and committing rights abuses in Aceh, where more than 35,000
troops are fighting around 5,000 rebels equipped with over 2,000
weapons.
Jakarta restricted the movement of journalists in the province
in July after local and international journalists documented
several alleged instances of arbitrary execution by troops.
The military initially said it would need six months to crush
the rebellion, but has recently begun talking about a longer war.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri issued a decree in mid-May
imposing martial law for six months in Aceh to allow government
troops to annihilate the GAM secessionist movement.
Jakarta has many times launched military operations to quell
GAM which officially began its fight for the independence of Aceh
in 1976. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have lost
their lives thus far.
Successive brutal campaigns by Indonesia's military have only
succeeded in fanning the insurgency, and most analysts say the
current offensive is unlikely to be any different.