Rapes 'rife' in Aceh but how to prove them in court?

Rapes 'rife' in Aceh but how to prove them in court?

By Pandaya

BANDA ACEH, Aceh (JP): The day was Aug. 17, 1996, the 51st
anniversary of Indonesia's Independence Day.

Sumiati, a disabled 19-year-old orphan who has no feet, was
terrified to see troops on the street and she quickly closed her
small roadside stall in Tringgading, Pidie, where she earned Rp
5,000 (under 50 U.S. cent) a day.

She made her way home near the stall as quickly as she could.
Looking back occasionally, she realized one of the soldiers was
following her.

Only with great difficulty did she manage to climb into her
elevated house and slam the door in the soldier's face, thinking
she was now safe.

She was wrong. The soldier smashed through the door.

"I just want to sit here and relax," replied the intruder when
she asked him why he chased her.

According to Sumiati, after a few seconds of silence, the
uninvited guest -- she knew his name, rank and unit from his
shirt -- asked her to undress or he would blow off her head.
Terrified, she had no way to refuse.

She was raped.

The next shock came five months later when a village clinic
doctor told her she was pregnant. She had attempted suicide
several times but her neighbors always came to the rescue. She
had also tried to abort the unwanted fetus but to no avail.

Sumiati, devastated, and having to raise her illegitimate
daughter, has lost the strength to reopen her kiosk, has told her
secret misery to National Commission on Human Rights officials on
a fact-finding mission on alleged atrocities in Aceh on Aug. 21.

On local rights activists' advice, Sumiati has met the alleged
rapist's commandant to discuss the case. She was offered Rp
500,000 on condition that she agreed the case was closed.

"Sumiati had no other more reasonable option and sign a
statement," said Farida Ariani from Care Human Rights Forum, who
offers advocacy to women who were victims of the 1989 to 1998
military operations against separatist activity in Aceh.

"What can you do with Rp 500,000?," she asked. "Sumiati cannot
breast-feed her baby because her breasts have not developed and
she gives her ailing baby water instead because canned milk is
too expensive."

The forum is determined to help Sumiati obtain regular
compensation from the alleged rapist.

Founded in July, when the atrocities began to surface
following Soeharto's fall, the forum, in cooperation with the
National Commission on Human Rights, has been collecting data on
the victims of the nine-year operation.

Farida said that as of Monday, the number of reported rape
victims had reached "dozens".

"Many victims are afraid to report on their plight for fear of
reprisal and others would like to keep the secret to themselves,"
she said.

The forum also works with other groups defending women's
rights, such as the Forum of Aceh Women Organization and the
Coordinating Body for Women.

The forum is campaigning to collect funds to initiate money-
generating projects for people who have become widows and orphans
because of the military operations.

In Pidie, there is a village where so many husbands died or
went missing during the operations that it is dubbed Village of
Widows.

The National Commission on Human Rights has thrown its support
behind the efforts to seek compensation from the government for
the victims of the military operations.

Baharuddin Lopa, the commission's secretary-general, demanded
in Lhokseumawe Saturday that in three months the government must
begin to offer compensation, especially to widows and orphans
whose lives have been devastated by the operations.

"The local government must create employment for the victims.
While waiting for compensation from the central government, local
administrations must find any way possible to get money," said
Lopa in his combative rhetoric.

Lopa also demanded the government free all Acehnese that the
authorities are still detaining on political presumptions and
without criminal evidence.

Arbitrary arrests, killings and forced disappearance have
caused untold misery to many families, especially impoverished
ones.

Juariah, a Pidie villager who makes a living collecting
firewood for Rp 2,500 a day, is a case in point. As she told
fact-finding volunteers from Banda Aceh, her husband was picked
up in 1991, when she was about to have her sixth baby.

The baby died two months after birth, without seeing its
father. Volunteers say Juariah was too stressed and poor to take
care of her baby properly.

One day she learned that her husband was among five bodies
found in the street and already buried in Tringgading village.
She recognized her husband's shirt and shorts that Tringgading
villagers had kept.

A major challenge facing women's rights activists demanding
legal solutions to rape is how to present material evidence that
the court will ask for.

"I really don't know," said Farida, who hails from Pidie, the
area worst affected by the military operations.

She considers DNA tests for children resulting from rapes but,
she says, the option would exclude most rape victims because only
a few resulted in pregnancy.

There is fear that the legal efforts will hit snags as has
happened in Jakarta, where police are demanding material evidence
for mass rapes that occurred during the mid-May anti-Chinese
riots. Some groups also charged that the claim is designed to
discredit Moslems.

Unlike rape victims in Jakarta, many of the victims in Aceh
have come out and detailed what they have experienced to fact-
finding volunteers.

"I'm afraid the Jakarta standoff will be repeated here. But I
really don't know the way out," Farida says. "We need to sift
through ideas."