Gunfire breaks TNI-GAM truce
Gunfire breaks TNI-GAM truce
Agencies, Banda Aceh/Lhok Nga
"There was just an exchange of fire down there," a local resident said on Thursday, indicating a beach in Lhok Nga, just outside Banda Aceh.
Lhok Nga was known as a beachfront recreation area before the tsunami came.
The clash on Thursday morning happened just off the coast that used to be the site of a housing compound for military engineers and infantry. It has now been reduced to scattered bricks and rubble.
"There was contact between the TNI and rebels," said a soldier of the Army's Special Forces, or Kopassus, referring to the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
The soldier, who was speaking aboard an Indonesian Military (TNI) speedboat that had been spotted earlier racing along the shoreline, said the rebels got away.
Meanwhile, the barefoot commander of the Kopassus team, his shirt untucked, refused to discuss the incident.
A military spokesman admitted last Friday that despite the disaster, the TNI offensive against the separatists was continuing. He added that it may be scaled down, as troops were devoting a large portion of their time to relief efforts.
The day after the Dec. 26 disaster, military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto called for a temporary cease-fire to support aid efforts. The following day, the GAM leadership said from Sweden -- where they reside in self-exile -- that it had imposed its own unilateral cease-fire.
"They're not brave enough to bother us in the daytime," said a soldier stationed in front of the badly-damaged Semen Andalas cement plant, about one kilometer down the beachfront road. "They're trying to provoke us." He also reported that gunfire came from the hills at night.
During the day, local residents use the beachfront road to travel between the capital and their villages, about a two-day walk.
"You won't give that to GAM will you?" a soldier inquired as he inspected the belongings of a man who was offering the pedestrians water and medical aid from in front of a tent.
The TNI claims that GAM may have acquired uniforms and weapons from the destroyed base nearby. "The weapons disappeared and people say GAM took them," one soldier said.
However, it is equally likely that the munitions were swept away by the unimaginable wall of water that knocked down many shoreline trees.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland has called on governments and rebels in Aceh, Sri Lanka and Somalia to keep the peace or risk losing US$3.7 billion in aid.
"We need that cease-fire, that peace to hold, because if a new conflict breaks out, we cannot help the people," he said on Wednesday.
Despite the reported skirmish, aid continued to flow in to Banda Aceh airport.
"As far as I know, there haven't been any delays," said Michael Elmquist, who heads the UN operation in Aceh.