RI hails GAM investigation

RI hails GAM investigation

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta welcomed on Tuesday Sweden's plan to begin a preliminary
investigation of the leaders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), who
are now Swedish citizens, saying the move would help resolve the
rebellion in the country's westernmost province.

"We appreciate the response by Sweden's administration because
legal action against GAM leaders in Sweden will help us enforce
the law against the rebels," Coordinating Minister for Political
and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.

"The Swedish prosecutors may question witnesses and prisoners
of GAM rebels at several penitentiaries in our country. We don't
know when they will arrive here, but for us, the sooner the
better," Susilo said.

The government, according to Susilo, is planning to set up a
team of police and prosecutors to assist Swedish prosecutors in
the preliminary investigation over alleged involvement of GAM's
leadership in crimes in Aceh and other parts on Indonesia.

Since President Megawati authorized the "integrated
operations" on May 19, 2003, efforts to file cases against GAM
leaders began, with accusations that they ordered their fighters
to carry out terrorist acts across the country.

Any investigation may be complicated by the fact that almost
all of the approximately 50 GAM leaders, including the movement's
founder Hasan Tiro, have obtained Swedish citizenship since they
arrived in the Scandinavian country as refugees in the late
1970s.

Sweden's Chief District Prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand will lead
the team to hold the investigation.

Indonesia has blamed the secessionist movement of involvement
in the Sept. 13, 2000 bomb explosion at the Jakarta Stock
Exchange, which claimed ten lives and injured dozens of others.

Police also believe they have linked the Sept. 23, 2001 attack
on the Atrium Plaza in Central Jakarta, to GAM. At least six
died.

Security authorities again pointed their fingers at GAM after
a blast at Graha Cijantung mall in East Jakarta on July 1, 2002,
despite testimonies from the suspects that they had no links to
GAM.

Based on the letter sent by Linsdstrand to the Indonesian
government, a preliminary investigation could also be held with
regard to the charges that GAM was behind the murder of Teuku
Nazharudin Daud, an Acehnese religious leader, on Feb. 25, 2000
and also Dayan Dawood, rector of Syiah Kuala university in Aceh,
on Sept. 6, 2001.

Meanwhile, GAM spokesman Sofyan Dawood said that the
movement's leadership in Sweden was not directly involved on the
operational side in the ongoing guerrilla war.

Sofyan also accused Indonesia of filing cases which were based
on testimonies from witnesses who "had been forced to confess
that they have a connection with GAM."

"We are pleased with Sweden's move to investigate the alleged
involvement of our leadership in a series of terror acts, but I'm
sure that they will find nothing. We've never been involved in
acts of terror and our leadership never ordered us to do so,"
Sofyan told The Jakarta Post by phone.

Since the government imposed martial law in Aceh and launched
a huge operation to crush GAM, who have been struggling for an
independent state since 1976, more than 1,300 guerrillas have
been killed and 2,000 others have been arrested or have
surrendered since then, according to the Indonesian military.