Jakarta to send more troops to troubled Aceh

Jakarta to send more troops to troubled Aceh

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Defense and Security/Indonesian
Military (TNI) chief Gen. Wiranto told a plenary Cabinet meeting
on Wednesday he would send more troops to Aceh because of
increased rebel attacks against security officers and civilians,
a minister said.

Minister of Information Lt. Gen. Muhammad Yunus said the
additional troops would be dispatched to protect people because
of terror and intimidation by members of the Free Aceh movement.

Yunus did not disclose the number of troops.

"The remnants of Hasan Tiro's security troublemakers are
stepping up their activities by attacking and destroying
government offices, ambushing and killing security forces,
dismaying, intimidating and killing people," Yunus quoted Wiranto
as reporting during the six-hour Cabinet meeting at Bina Graha
presidential office.

Hasan Tiro has been named by the government as the leader of
the Free Aceh movement, which has fought for an Islamic state
since the mid-1970s.

According to Yunus, the rebels killed 59 people from early May
to June 3 this year alone.

He did not divulge the number of people killed by TNI
personnel during its operations.

Yunus also said 550 of the estimated 1,000 rebels were trained
in Libya. They are armed with 800 AK-47s and M-16s, he added.

They have expanded their armed operations to West Aceh and
South Aceh from the traditional unrest zones of North Aceh and
East Aceh.

"This is actually armed rebellion. This is not only feelings
of dissatisfaction," Yunus said, in apparent reference to the
demands of some for an independent state.

On Tuesday, Wiranto told reporters in Jakarta that TNI and
police personnel would take tough measures against Hasan Tiro's
rebels.

He said the group attacked law enforcers, damaged state and
public facilities and was attempting to disrupt next Monday's
polls in the province.

Wiranto was insistent that no single area of Indonesia held
the right to remove itself from the republic because the nation
was committed to remaining unified.

Separately, an unidentified number of combat troops from the
North Sumatra capital of Medan arrived in Lhokseumawe, North
Aceh, on Tuesday evening.

The military said the troops were assigned to help restore
order and security in troubled regencies before the elections.

Maj. Gen. Affan Gaffar, chief of the Bukit Barisan Military
Command overseeing security in Aceh and North Sumatra, told The
Jakarta Post the military would continue to send more soldiers to
Aceh until calm returned.

"We will continue to crush the separatist movement in the
province. We have lost many personnel over the last three
months," he said by telephone from Padang, West Sumatra, on
Tuesday.

Last week, at least 15 security personnel, transmigrants and
health workers were killed by rebels in two separate ambushes in
West Aceh and Pidie regencies.

On Wednesday, thousands of refugees reportedly packed two
intercity bus terminals in Lhokseumawe in North Aceh as they
tried to flee the violence.

"There are thousands here, more than usual, even more than
Idul Fitri celebration," an employee at PM Toh bus terminal in
Lhokseumawe was quoted by AFP as saying.

Rights workers said hundreds of employees of megaprojects in
Lhokseumawe, such as Mobil Oil, PT Arun natural gas plant,
fertilizer firms PT Pupuk Iskandar and PT Asean Fertilizer, as
well as the paper and pulp firm PT Kertas Kraft Aceh, in and
around the area also joined the exodus.

One witness said the exodus, expected to reach about 20,0000
people, left Lhokseumawe resembling a "ghost town" after sundown.

Some bus companies have laid on additional buses to fulfill
the sudden demand for outbound transport since the exodus started
early Monday.

"Only some people who are migrants sleep overnight here if
they cannot get on board a bus, but others just come back the
next day," the bus terminal employee said.

Some shopowners opened their shops briefly during the day but
their doors remained half shut, ready to close at the slightest
sign of violence.

"The streets are empty, even during the day, but it really is
like a ghost town here at night," a resident said.

North Aceh is one of four districts in the province where
violence has intensified between soldiers and Free Aceh
separatist guerrillas in the past few weeks.

In the wee hours of Tuesday, two high schools buildings in
North Aceh were set ablaze by an unidentified group following
rumors that the schools would be occupied by military personnel.

Almost at the same time, about 50 shop-houses belonging to
residents of Teunom subdistrict in West Aceh regency were razed,
leaving 325 people homeless.

From Medan, local police said they arrested two rebel members
who were on their way home together with 19 other Acehnese who
were working as illegal immigrants in Malaysia.

North Sumatra police spokesman Lt. Col. Amrin Karim said on
Wednesday that Fauzi Ibrahim, alias Mounzir, 33, and Jauhari, 30,
were caught "in Indonesian waters" on May 7.

During preliminary questioning, the two admitted that they had
been ordered by the Free Aceh movement's "minister of
information" to secure and distribute the group's documents to
the people of Aceh because their maneuvers in Malaysia were under
investigation by the local police. (prb/rms/46/bsr)