Military to safeguard elections in troubled Aceh

Tiarma Siboro and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh/Jakarta

The Aceh military has set up security arrangements to enable local residents in areas known as rebel strongholds to exercise their right to vote on April 5.

Commander of the North Aceh Military overseeing also Lhokseumawe and Bireuen, Lt. Col. Entang Sulaiman, said on Wednesday the military had classified the polling stations into three categories: safe, danger level 1 and danger level 2. The status determines the number of soldiers deployed to guard the polling stations.

In a safe area, police and civilian guards will play the main role in providing security around a polling station, with up to five soldiers placed at a radius of up to one kilometer from a polling station.

There will be between five and seven soldiers helping the police at each polling station located in areas classified as danger level 1, while in the danger level 2 areas the number of soldiers will be increased to 15 for each polling station.

"The soldiers will be ready on site on April 1 (Thursday) or four days before D-day," Entang said.

There will be around 3,500 soldiers involved in safeguarding the election in North Aceh and Bireuen alone, while all over the province the martial law administrator will deploy 21,000 troops.

Head of the North Aceh General Elections Commission (KPUD) Nazaruddin Ibrahim said local residents would cast their vote at 2,293 polling stations across the regency, with 988 of them located in areas considered as safe, 816 situated in the danger level 1 and 744 in the danger level 2 areas.

North Aceh, along with East Aceh, is known as a stronghold of Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels.

The military launched a major offensive against the rebels in May last year. The current military operation is aimed at enabling the Aceh people to exercise their right to vote in the legislative election on April 5 and the presidential election on July 5.

The government had planned to change the martial law status to a civil emergency status when the mandate for the military operation expires on May 19 of this year.

Entang said, however, the security arrangement would be different for villages considered GAM bases. He declined to elaborate on the arrangements.

Interim coordinating minister for political and security affairs Hari Sabarno said in Jakarta on Wednesday the election would definitely be scrapped in 25 of the 52 villages known as GAM strongholds across North Aceh and East Aceh.

"Of the 52 villages which fall under GAM control, we could still hold the election in 27 of them but we need to take extra measures to make it possible," Hari said at the State Palace.

He said it would be impossible to hold the election in the 25 villages because of GAM's presence.

"GAM has a strong presence in the villages and government troops cannot enter those areas," the minister said.

He played down the consequence of the decision with regards the legitimacy of the legislative election in the province. "There are still hundreds of villages where people can exercise their right to vote," he said.

Currently, there are no foreign monitors registered to observe the election in the conflict-prone areas in North Aceh.

"They must secure a permit from the martial law administration, the Aceh Police and the local district police beforehand. They cannot go beyond municipalities," Entang said.