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.