House grills military top brass over Aceh

House grills military top brass over Aceh

JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and
Security Gen. Wiranto and top military officials were questioned
over allegations of human rights abuses in the restive province
of Aceh during an investigation by a special House of
Representatives committee on Thursday.

Gen. Wiranto, the former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief,
denied the military had engineered unrest in the province as a
pretext to deploy troops to crush separatist rebels there.

"It is entirely untrue ... When I was the commander of the
TNI, I was clean of engineering something as that," Wiranto
replied when asked by the special House committee on Aceh.

The province has been wracked by violence after a decade of
strong military control was implemented to crush separatist
rebels.

An independent inquiry accused military leaders on Tuesday of
ordering human rights violations in the province which were
tantamount to "war crimes".

The House committee has been holding sessions all week,
summoning top officials and the National Commission on Human
Rights to present testimony on the troubled province.

The committee announced on Tuesday that it would also summon
former defense minister Gen. (ret.) L.B. Moerdani and Armed
Forces chiefs Try Sutrisno and Feisal Tanjung.

Accompanying Gen. Wiranto to the 50-member House committee on
Thursday were National Police chief Gen. Roesmanhadi, TNI chief
Adm. Widodo Adi Sucipto and defense minister Juwono Sudarsono.
Also present were Attorney General Marzuki Darusman and State
Minister of Human Rights Affairs Hasballah M. Saad.

Several committee members emotionally queried Gen. Wiranto and
other military officers on the military's involvement in the
province.

Legislator Zulfan Lindan of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle laid suspicion of engineering the Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) threat.

He questioned why journalists often had access to interview
GAM members while the military supposedly had trouble tracking
them down.

Another legislator, Pramono, also accused the military of
contriving the whole affair.

Both Gen. Wiranto and Adm. Widodo contended that in recent
months the military had adopted a defensive stance rather than
pursuing rebels and that the military were refraining from house
to house searches in villages since in the past the practice had
triggered a mass exodus.

Defending the military's actions, Gen. Wiranto said there
could have been false information distributed or might have been
indisciplined steps taken by soldiers on the ground.

He contended that the military had taken steps to bring these
violators to court, reiterating once again that 151 cases had
been brought to court.

"It could be that the violations by the soldiers were done
without the knowledge of their commander," Wiranto said.

The independent investigation said on Tuesday that it
documented 5,000 cases of human rights abuses in Aceh, including
cases of summary executions, torture, rape and abductions.

Troops

Adm. Widodo told the hearing that no more troops would be sent
to Aceh. "The TNI will not add any more troops even though the
conditions are still unsafe for troops securing (government)
facilities and their families," he said.

He claimed that there were only 814 army troops, 600 marines
and a platoon of the Air Force's special force (Paskhas) now in
Aceh.

Meanwhile, Roesmanhadi said police, who were responsible for
security in the province, had just sent two police battalions
there, increasing the number on the ground to more than 11,000.

He defended the decision saying that the two battalions were
necessary to anticipate mounting tension ahead of the 23rd
anniversary of GAM on Dec. 4.

"We predict that there will be a massive mobilization of
people, the removal of Indonesian flags and attacks on military
and police posts and state projects," Roesmanhadi said.

Separately, former Lilawangsa commander overseeing volatile
regencies in Aceh Lt. Gen. (ret) Syarwan Hamid said on Thursday
that he was ready to face a tribunal to account for his alleged
involvement in past violence in Aceh.

"I am ready to face the trial as long as it is not set up only
to merely satisfy public opinion," Syarwan said on the sidelines
of a discussion on federalism here.

The state-funded independent inquiry into the violence in Aceh
disclosed earlier this week that Syarwan was among top military
officials who were directly or indirectly involved in alleged
human rights abuses in Aceh.

Syarwan said, however, that what he did in Aceh was only
"carrying out orders".

"As a soldier, I received orders to resolve the insurgency in
Aceh ... There was no order to kill or rape innocent people," he
said.

Meanwhile, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Sudrajat said the
military would support a trial of its members who were accused of
rights abuses in Aceh as long as the trial was not "a political
show".

He called on the public to treat the accused soldiers fairly
as they were only carrying out orders.

"We do as what we are ordered to do, the (military operation
in Aceh) was the government's decision at that time," he added.
(04/byg)