Mortar rounds fired as siege continues

Mortar rounds fired as siege continues

Agencies, Jakarta

Residents of troubled Aceh province reported gun and mortar fire Sunday as government forces ignored a separatist deadline to the military to pull back from their siege of rebel positions.

Instead, the military said it was tightening the siege.

Residents reported hearing mortar rounds fired from government positions before dawn on Sunday near Cot Trieng, a swampy area where more than 1,000 Indonesian troops have been surrounding dozens of Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels for about three weeks.

The residents said the mortar rounds were followed by gunfire near the besieged area well into the day on Sunday.

The long-range mortar rounds are believed to be the first fired in a week and came ahead of a 03:00 GMT Sunday deadline which GAM set for Indonesian troops to show signs of withdrawing from the besieged area in Nisam district, southwest of Lhokseumawe city.

Aceh military spokesman Lt. Col. Firdaus Komarno told AFP a 15-minute exchange of gunfire between government and rebel troops took place Sunday morning when between 20 and 30 rebels tried to escape from swamps in the besieged area. Government gunfire drove them back in, Firdaus said.

He confirmed the mortar fire overnight Saturday, saying it was to put pressure on the rebels.

Government forces are tightening the siege by moving closer to GAM positions and decreasing the distance between army posts to as little as 10 meters around the besieged area, Firdaus said.

GAM had given Indonesian troops 24 hours to begin a withdrawal and said if the deadline was not met, rebel intelligence units had orders to start shooting.

But the order to open fire had not yet been issued, GAM's deputy spokesman Isnandar Al-Pase told AFP Sunday after the deadline expired.

"The situation is still normal and GAM combat intelligence guerrillas are on full alert. The order to attack will be given if Indonesian soldiers are already extremely close to us," Al- Pase said.

He said there had been a "routine" exchange of fire overnight Saturday at the besieged area which is about nine kilometers long and one kilometer across.

Foreign peace monitors have begun arriving in Aceh in anticipation of a proposed "cessation of hostilities" agreement being signed by GAM and the Indonesian government.

The government hopes to sign the agreement on Nov. 23 but the rebels, in a statement from their Swedish headquarters on Friday, questioned why Indonesia is trying to "hurriedly force GAM to sign."

The peace proposal calls for an immediate end to hostilities.

The rebels said Saturday that they supported a proposed peace plan aimed at ending a 26-year civil war but would not be pressured into signing any deal.

Tengku Kamaruzzaman, a GAM spokesman, said the rebels agreed in principle to the proposal unveiled on Friday, which called for autonomy for the province's 4 million people, elections for a provincial legislature and administration, and cessation of violence.

But he warned that the military's weeklong siege of a rebel camp in northern Aceh threatened to derail any peace plan and erode trust.

"The seizing of the rebel camp by the military makes it more difficult for us to believe in the Indonesian government," Kamaruzzaman was quoted by AP as saying. "If they keep up this siege, it will hard for us to sign a peace agreement."

But Kamaruzzaman said rebels still planned to take part in peace talks scheduled for next month and brokered by the Geneva- based Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

Some 10,000 people are estimated to have been killed since GAM began its independence struggle on the northern tip of Sumatra island in 1976. Rights monitors say more than 1,200 civilians have died this year.