Police round up activists, claiming GAM link

Police round up activists, claiming GAM link

Apriadi Gunawan and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post,
Medan/Jakarta

In support of the government's pledge to quash the Free Aceh
Movement (GAM), the police rounded up activists and other
individuals and charged them with subversion over their alleged
connection with the separatist group.

On Wednesday, the Banda Aceh District Police declared a female
activist, identified as 47-year-old Cut Asikin, as a suspect in
subversion and terror cases in the province.

Cut, who leads the Srikandi Aceh women's rights organization,
was arrested at her residence in the Lampula area in Banda Aceh
on Tuesday afternoon.

Banda Aceh Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Alfons claimed that Cut
was the leader of GAM's women's military wing Inoeng Balee.

He told reporters that the police charged Cut for violating
articles on subversion from the Criminal Code as well as articles
of the Antiterrorism Law, which carries the death penalty.

Cut, a mother of five, owns a hotel in Banda Aceh. She is
currently being interrogated by the police.

Separately, the North Aceh Police arrested three people over
their alleged involvement with GAM during an operation dubbed
"Balance Operation".

One of the suspects, 40-year-old Sheny Angelina, is the
secretary to David Gorman, the spokesman of the Henry Dunant
Center (HDC), which facilitated the peace agreement between
Jakarta and GAM.

Angelina was later released along with an unidentified
activist. The third was still being detained for questioning,
said North Sumatra Police Chief Brig. Gen. Edi Sunarno.

Edi told The Jakarta Post that Angelina and the two others
were arrested at about 1:45 p.m. while on transit at Polonia
airport in Medan en route to Banda Aceh from Jakarta.

The police alleged that Angelina, an Indonesian national, was
a GAM negotiator, as she had attended the recent peace conference
in Tokyo, held in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the peace
agreement.

"The arrest is in line with (the government's) commitment to
law enforcement in its Balance Operation, which has been
conducted due to the tense situation in Aceh," Edi asserted.

However, Gorman said that the arrest was a mistake.

"She is a staff of the Henry Dunant Center and has nothing to
do with GAM. It (the arrest) was a mistake," Gorman told the Post
by telephone.

Indonesian military authorities stationed in Aceh announced
that they would take firm action against any GAM supporters,
whether individuals or organizations, as part of its efforts to
reduce support for the separatist movement as part of the martial
law imposed by the government.

Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya, Aceh's military commander and the
military law administration chief for Aceh, accused the Aceh
Referendum Information Center (SIRA) -- whose chairman is
currently on trial for violating the Law on Public Rallies -- and
the Student Solidarity for the People's Movement (SMUR) of being
GAM sympathizers.

He threatened to arrest their members if they continued their
activities.

Munir, a prominent activist, said that the moves to round up
human rights activists showed that authorities were attempting to
"kill control agents by oppressing those elements by labeling
them GAM sympathizers".

"This tendency clearly shows a deviation from the military
operation in Aceh, as well as the government's aim to intimidate
non-governmental organizations," he added.

Munir said that military authorities must not stereotype NGOs
as GAM sympathizers, as many of them work in the area of human
rights, and had no political motives.