Rights body 'must come to Aceh with forensic experts'
JAKARTA (JP): The Armed Forces will allow the National Commission on Human Rights' fact-finding team to exhume human bodies allegedly buried in two mass graves in Aceh only if the commission is accompanied by forensic experts, according to a military spokesman.
"The rights body's team must be accompanied by forensic experts who are able to examine human skulls in the two mass graves which have been used since the Dutch colonial era," Col. Dasiri Muswar, the Aceh military district commander, told The Jakarta Post by telephone yesterday.
He said the two mass graves, known locally as Skull Hill and Cut Pangli, had once been used to bury bodies of Acehnese people who died in the war against the Dutch in the 1940s and during the aftermath of the abortive coup by the banned Indonesian Communist party (PKI) in 1965/1966.
He also said the pullout of all troops from Aceh would proceed in accordance with the schedule. The Kompas daily has reported there are 12,000 soldiers in the province, 6,000 of whom were local territorials and the remainder troops deployed from elsewhere, including the Army's Special Force (Kopassus).
"A gradual withdrawal of the troops will last for a month as ordered by the Armed Forces leadership last week," he said.
The rights body's team is scheduled to leave for Aceh on Aug. 20 to investigate reports of human rights violations there.
The team is also expected to visit various places reported to be mass graves used to bury Acehnese people killed in military operations in the past decade. Some local non-governmental organizations have claimed there are eleven mass graves.
Baharuddin Lopa, the secretary-general of the commission, told the Post his team would not take forensic experts from Jakarta. Instead, "we will ask (for help from) forensic experts in Aceh or in the North Sumatran capital of Medan, if they are needed."
The United Development Party (PPP) faction in the House of Representatives (DPR) expressed concern over the human rights violations by the Armed Forces in Aceh and called on the government to thoroughly investigate those cases.
"The (cases) of human rights violations in Aceh could not have been procedural errors ... because the killings, torture, rapes, detentions and the burning down of houses that have happened since 1989, were premeditated," Lukman Hakiem said. His PPP colleague Djufrie Asmoredjo concurred, as quoted by Antara.
Muchtar Aziz and Ghazali Abbas Adan, also of PPP, were members of the House's eight-strong fact-finding team which early this month visited Aceh. Led by House Deputy Speaker Lt. Gen. Hari Sabarno, the team announced parts of the results of their mission yesterday.
Ghazali said that in addition to the planned pullout of troops, the government should investigate the rights violations and try the responsible parties.
He said the government should now support the wives and children of those who were killed, tortured and arrested during the military operations that began in the area since 1989.
Abdurrachman Yacob, chairman of the Banda Aceh Legal Aid Institute, said the institute, along with other local rights groups, was in the process of establishing an inventory of victims of the military operations in its efforts to seek legal solutions to the alleged killings, abductions, torture, arrests, rapes and house burnings.
He also said his office and other local NGOs would be ready to cooperate with the rights body to help expose the rights violations. (rms)