PPRM clarifies fact in Aceh shooting
LHOKSEUMAWE, Aceh (JP): The joint-military Crack Riot Troop (PPRM) task force on Wednesday revised details of violence which left six people dead a day earlier in Peudada district.
PPRM task force commander Col. Ridwan Karim told The Jakarta Post here that Tuesday's incident began when houses of transmigrants from Uleu Keute village of the Peudada district, about 55 kilometers west of here, were set on fire.
"A group of 100 PPRM personnel together with local medical staff were hastily deployed to the scene in a truck after a report was received from the Uleu Keute village chief," Ridwan said.
He was told that houses of the transmigrants (mostly from Java) had been set ablaze by a group of people armed with AK-47s.
Two transmigrants, identified as Yanto and Zulkifli, were incinerated in the fire, he said.
The truck carrying the PPRM personnel and the medical staff were about six kilometers from the village when gunshots, allegedly from Free Aceh separatist guerrillas, were fired at them at 11:15 p.m., Ridwan said.
"PPRM personnel also had the chance to fire back for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, they were in a bad position, while the rebels were easily aiming at our personnel from the top of the hill," the officer said.
According to Ridwan, the guerrillas shot dead PPRM members Second Sgt. Hendrik Silian from the Army and Pvt. second class Dominggus VC Taufan as well as Dr. Fauzia, head of the Peudada health center and her fellow staff member, Mustapha.
"Fauzia was four months pregnant and an Acehnese. Which Islamic rule allows Free Aceh separatist movement rebels to kill a pregnant female physician?"
Eight other PPRM personnel, most of them holding senior ranks, together with three other medical staff, were still in a serious condition at Lhokseumawe and Biereun hospitals, he said.
One of the injured, Peudada Police subprecinct chief Second Lt. Naharuddin, was in a critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head.
Early version
A few hours after the incident, Indonesian Military (TNI) spokesman Maj. Gen. Syamsul Ma'arif said at least 20 members of the rebel group launched an assault on a transmigration resettlement area in the Peudada district, killing two transmigrants, two officers and two medical staff.
He gave no further details about the incident.
Six other people were injured when the rebels attacked a police station, he said.
PPRM, consisting of a battalion of 450 riot troops including a bomb squad, intelligence officers and military police, was dispatched from Jakarta to Aceh on May 7 to restore law and order to the province.
In a related development on Wednesday, an NGO activist for humanity affairs, Acehnese Suraiya Kamaruzzaman of Flower, said in her testimony on military atrocities in Aceh that Free Aceh separatist guerrillas were not involved in Tuesday's incident.
"From our (organization's) experience, it's impossible that they (rebels) killed civilians, since their doctrine prohibits them from doing that," she told an audience of activists and reporters at the International NGO Forum for Indonesian Development office in South Jakarta.
"Our organization members had met them several times and they did not kill our members, even though we're indeed easy targets to be killed by them."
Suraiya believed the killing was masterminded by certain parties in order to create renewed violence in Aceh. (46/01/bsr)