Police foil attempt to smuggle arms to GAM
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
Police in Labuhan Batu, North Sumatra, arrested on Tuesday five Acehnese people who were trying to smuggle a huge cache of M-16 automatic rifle ammunition and 103 boxes of medicine from Jakarta to strife-torn Aceh.
The five suspects identified as H, 35, MBK, 32, BS, 42, B, 20, and ABZ, 32 and all Acehnese, were netted by the Labuhan Batu Police in a traffic operation in Blok Songo Village, Kota Pinang.
Adj. Sr. Comr. Amrin Karim, spokesman for the North Sumatra Police, said the five detainees were scheduled to be moved to the provincial capital of Medan on Wednesday and were believed to be members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), and simultaneously part of a well-organized syndicate supplying provisions to the secessionist movement.
"All detainees are Acehnese and their address are in Bireuen and Banda Aceh. They will be undergoing intensive investigation at the provincial police headquarters," he said.
He said the 5.56 mm bullets and medicine would also be sent to the police headquarters in Medan as material evidence to investigate the origin of the illegal goods, and who supplied them.
Second Insp. M. Pasaribu, who led the operation, said that the contraband was seized from two trucks that were on their way from Jakarta to Aceh.
"We became suspicious after one of the drivers tried to escape when the trucks were told to pull over," he said.
When checking their cargo, the police found the six boxes of ammunition and 10 bags of drugs, he explained.
He said the police suspected that the ammunition was made by the state-owned munitions plant PT Pindad in Bandung, West Java, which engraves all bullets with the letters PINDAD and are easily identifiable.
"But the police are still investigating the ammunition supplier," he said.
However, Labuhan Batu Police station chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Didit Prabowo said the ammunition was from Finland because the boxes had "made in Finland" printed on them.
He said the ammunition and drugs were supplied by an international syndicate in cooperation with GAM's network in Jakarta.
Meanwhile, Sr. Comr. Iskandar Hasan, chief of detectives at the North Sumatra Police, said the police would continue to monitor the trafficking of marijuana from Banda Aceh to Java and the smuggling of weapons and ammunition from Java to the restive province.
"We have enhanced coordination among provincial police in Sumatra and Java to crack down on the increasing trafficking of marijuana from Aceh to Java," he said.
GAM smuggles marijuana to other provinces in Sumatra and Java to finance its struggle against security personnel, he said.
"GAM is supplied weapons through the Sumatra mainland because of the tight control by the Navy of Aceh's waterways," he said.
In the past year, the police have confiscated thousands of tons of dried marijuana from trucks and buses traveling through Sumatra on their way to Java.