Military guards settlers in Aceh

Military guards settlers in Aceh

By Budiman Moerdijat

LHOKSEUMAWE, North Aceh (JP): Armored vehicles and heavily
armed troops rushed on Saturday to guard a migrant settlers
village in Syamtalira Bayu district, some 40 kilometers south of
here, where unidentified groups of men have been intimidating
residents to boycott the elections.

Earlier in the day, Lilawangsa Military Commander Col. Johnny
Wahab, who oversees security in Pidie, North Aceh and East Aceh,
was flown in on a military chopper to monitor security in the
regencies.

"We will be flying over a number of migrant settlers sites to
back up the security on the ground," Johnny told The Jakarta Post
minutes before getting into the chopper.

Johnny was accompanied by riot troops Commander Col. Ridwan
Karim and the elite police Mobile Brigade Commander Brig. Gen.
S.Y. Wenas.

The beachside helipad was just a block away from Johnny's
office and dozens of reinforcement troops from the North Sumatra
capital of Medan were seen taking a short break before they were
deployed to the migrant settlers villages.

Meanwhile, three armored vehicles and about 100 troops in five
military trucks arrived in Sukadamai village at about 1 p.m. and
were followed two hours later by at least 75 reinforcement troops
in three military trucks.

The second group, which was also heavily armed, however,
returned to the North Aceh capital after stopping for only about
30 minutes in the Javanese settler village to refuel armored
vehicles and drop some logistics.

"The residents had already packed their bags and were ready to
leave when we arrived in the village," team leader Capt. Suranto
told The Jakarta Post.

Suranto was then seen calming the villagers down in a
community hall and told them not to leave the village.

Syahredi, a migrant settler who has been living in Aceh for
more than 10 years, said the residents in six out of eight
Javanese settler villages in the area have fled to Lhokseumawe
and Medan in the past few days.

"Some 1,000 families in the nearby Satya Agung rubber
plantation company have fled the area in the last three days,"
Syahredi told the military.

He said a group of ten people riding motorcycles or more have
frequented the villages in the past weeks and the residents were
told to leave or their houses would be set on fire.

"A group of people, some speaking in Indonesian and some
speaking in Acehnese, came to my house in the middle of night on
Thursday and took my motorcycles and left," Syahredi said.

"They said the Javanese should go home ... they have been
venting their hatred of the military atrocity during DOM (a
decade of anti-rebel operations) to us," Syahredi said.

Sukadamai is right in the heart of thousands of hectares of
rubber and oil palm plantations in the regency and military
convoys have to go through a rough and dusty ride to reach the
area.

"This is the perfect place for the rebels to make an ambush,"
a foreign photojournalist, who was traveling with the Post to the
village, said.

Dozens of red crescent star flags -- the symbol of the Free
Aceh separatist movement -- were also seen painted on school
buildings on the way from Lhokseumawe to Sukamaju.

At least 16 people, including army troops, police, a female
doctor and a member of the local elections committee, were killed
in a number of surprise attacks in North Aceh, South Aceh and
West Aceh in the past two weeks.

The military said separatist members were behind the attacks
and the escalating tensions in the province, but the accusations
were flatly denied by separatist leader Abdullah Syafii in Pidie
on Thursday.

Pidie, North Aceh and East Aceh are the regencies which had
been worst-affected by a decade of anti-rebel operations during
which the military was accused of widespread human rights abuses.

The local government said that more than 1,000 were killed
while thousands of others suffered during the military operations
which began in 1989.

The operations were only halted in August, but they were
renewed in early January following the killing of seven off-duty
army soldiers and two marines in East Aceh late December which
the military said was perpetrated by separatist members.

Calls for a referendum on self-determination and an election
boycott have been the strongest in the regencies and have grown
stronger since the military shooting in Krueng Geukueh village,
some 15 kilometers west of here, on May 3 which killed at least
41 civilian protesters.