Rights watchdog warns RI it may lose credibility

Rights watchdog warns RI it may lose credibility

Urip Hudiono and Nani Farida, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Banda Aceh

Indonesia risks losing its international credibility if it fails
to stop abuses by the military against civilians in Aceh and
ensure that perpetrators of the human rights violations are
brought to justice, an international rights group warns.

In its 50-page report based on interviews with 100 Acehnese
people who sought refuge in Malaysia, Human Rights Watch said
violations of human rights had been rampant ever since martial
law began on May 19.

"The Indonesian Military should seriously follow international
humanitarian laws in its conduct of war if Indonesia wants to
retain its credibility with the international community," Brad
Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division,
said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Martial law was extended in November for another six months.

"Every Acehnese we interviewed had a story of abuse to tell,
and we fear that those abuses may just be the tip of an iceberg,"
said Adams of the report titled, Aceh Under Martial Law: Inside
The Secret War.

The abuses include extrajudicial executions, forced
disappearances, beatings, arbitrary arrests and detentions and
drastic limits on freedom of movement in Aceh.

While welcoming the Indonesian government's decision this
month to allow access to Aceh by the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) and United Nations humanitarian agencies,
the watchdog called on the government to go further by opening
Aceh to independent monitoring, including that by international
organizations, and allowing Indonesia's National Commission on
Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and local human rights organizations to
carry out fact-finding investigations.

Human Rights Watch urged the international community as well,
in particular the United States, the European Union, Japan and
the World Bank, to register more forcefully concern about the
secret war in Aceh.

The watchdog also called on countries providing military
assistance or training to Indonesia to consider a moratorium on
all arms transfers to Indonesia.

Meanwhile, thousands of Aceh people joined on Wednesday an
antiseparatist front that will take up arms to help the military
fight Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels.

Claiming to have registered 15,000 members, the Anti-Aceh
Separatist Movement Front (FAGSAM) chapter in Aceh Jaya, some 150
kilometers west of Aceh's capital Banda Aceh, pledged to protect
people from the rebels.

"To crush the rebels, we shall tell the security authorities
about separatist hideouts. The military will stand behind us,"
chairman of the group, Hasbi Yunus, said.

He said front members would arm themselves with sharpened
bamboo poles and swords during their mission.

The same front has been formed in other regencies across the
province.

Wearing red and white headbands, the people attending the
declaration set fire to 50 GAM flags they had confiscated across
Aceh Jaya regency.

Hasbi said that to mark their debut, front members would ask
some 400 families to persuade their members who were fighting for
GAM to surrender. He said if the rebels refused to give up, front
members would force their families to abandon their homes in
mountains around the regency.