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.