Rights body to probe Aceh 'mass killings'

Rights body to probe Aceh 'mass killings'

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights will
soon begin investigating reports that more than 39,000 Acehnese
have died in various military operations over the past decade and
that 1,000 others are still in military detention in Indonesia's
westernmost province.

The commission will set up a fact-finding team by the end of
this month to probe the allegations, commission member B.N.
Marbun said when addressing dozens of Acehnese students who took
the reports to commission's office yesterday.

Marbun said the commission planned to meet Minister of
Defense/ Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander Gen. Wiranto to discuss
the current status of Aceh as a military operation region.

"We will ask ABRI to pull out all soldiers deployed to crush
the separatist rebel movement, as well as lift the military
operation region status in the province," he said.

Along with Irian Jaya and East Timor, Aceh has been given a
special status of military operation region. It enable the army
to facilitate the suppression of separatism in the three
provinces.

The Aceh students, who called themselves the Aceh Non-
Governmental Organization (NGO) Forum, reported that at least
39,000 women in the province were widowed when their husbands
were shot to death in military operations between 1989 and 1998.

They did not say how they came up with their figures.

Armed Forces spokesman (ABRI) Brig. Gen. A. Wahab Mokodongan
told The Jakarta Post that "even simple logics" would say that it
was impossible for the military to kill that great number of
people.

He admitted there were military operations in the province,
and that some people might have died because they were caught in
crossfire, but "none were shot at deliberately."

Those who died were the side effects of the military
operations, he said, adding that all of the workers previously
detained have all been released.

Yesterday, student Abdul Gani Nurdin said: "Those women's
husbands -- accused of being members of the separatist
disturbance group or GPK -- were killed in sadistic ways. Most of
them were executed without trial. Their bodies were dumped in
roads to be picked up by passers by."

He said thousands of Acehnese were still going missing while
others were serving jail sentences in two prisons in
Lhokseumauwe, North Aceh, and in the provincial capital Banda
Aceh.

"The prisoners are serving between eight and 20 years for
their alleged involvement in the separatist movement," he said.
He added that many women have reported being raped by soldiers
while their husbands were being detained.

The students rejected that the victims and those who were
missing or jailed were members of the Aceh separatist movement,
saying they were peasants and mostly illiterate.

Sorrow

Two widows whose husbands were allegedly executed in a 1991
military operation in Pidie, North Aceh, joined the group of
students yesterday. They expressed their sorrow and urged the
government to investigate the alleged military brutality.

Ti Aminah said her husband, Muniruddin, was abducted by a
group of soldiers on April 27, 1991. On May 1, 1991, he was
brought home briefly before he was taken away again.

On May 7, 1991, he was found dead on a road near their
village, Cat Keng, in Bandar Dua district.

Ti Aminah said she herself was interrogated and intimidated by
the soldiers, and was told that her husband belonged to the
separatist group. "They threatened to kill me if I took (my
husband's death) to court," she said.

Ti Aminah, a jobless 26-year-old mother of three sons, said
her complaints to the local administration and the military had
thus far been ignored.

Juariah, 41, said her husband was "fetched" by a group of men
in green fatigues when she was giving birth to her fifth son on
May 2, 1991.

"On July, 2, 1991, I heard from the local administration that
my husband had been given a mass burial along with five others,"
she said. She added she was made to pay Rp 50,000 (US$5 at the
current rate) for the burial.

The two widows urged the rights body to investigate "the Aceh
genocide" and to ask for ABRI's response to the allegations.

Fahmi Mada, a member of the Aceh NGO Forum, said that more
than 1,000 of around 3,000 Acehnese workers deported by the
Malaysian government recently have been detained in military and
police detention houses in the province for their alleged links
to the Aceh separatist movement.

"The arrests of the workers are groundless. And they cannot be
treated as political detainees because they are not GPK members,"
he said.

He acknowledged that many Acehnese people had escaped
overseas, including to Malaysia, South Korea and Brunei
Darussalam because of fears of persecution, torture, arrest and
interrogation by local military authorities over their alleged
links to the separatist movement.

During the Malaysian authorities' operations to deport illegal
migrants, thousands of whom were Indonesians working in
plantation sectors, a group of Acehnese refused to be shipped
home, citing persecution. Some forced their way into the local
office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
seeking asylum. (rms)