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)