Separatists deny role in Aceh Violence
Separatists deny role in Aceh Violence
LHOKSEUMAWE, North Aceh (JP): Members of the armed wing of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) last Thursday denied military accusations they were behind a series of violent attacks in the province ahead of the June 7 elections.
"The accusations are all lies ...it is the military itself who has been committing the attacks and (the allegations) were only made to discredit the Free Aceh members," separatist leader Abdullah Syafii, 47, told The Jakarta Post at his temporary base in a village in Pidie regency, some 100 kilometers west of here.
The military said separatist members were behind a number of attacks in West Aceh and North Aceh which resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people, including police and military personnel and a female doctor.
"The Acehnese are against violence, we carry out our struggle (for an independent Aceh) by politically educating the villagers," Abdullah, who claims to be the commander of GAM in Pidie, said.
Wearing camouflage fatigues and a green beret with a small red crescent and star badge -- the symbol of the Free Aceh Movement -- Abdullah was accompanied by at least ten men armed with Russian-made AK-47 automatic weapons during the interview.
"Sometimes we live in the villages, sometimes we move to the mountains. We do not live in one place," Abdullah said, adding that separatist members have at least 10 command posts throughout the regency.
Pidie, North Aceh and East Aceh are the regencies which were most-affected by the military's decade-long operation to fight separatist rebels in the province.
Allegations of widespread human rights abuses committed by the military during the operation have recently surfaced.
The military halted the operation last August, but it was renewed in early January following the killing of seven off-duty Army personnel and two marines in East Aceh in late-December. The military accused separatist rebels of the murders.
Calls for a referendum on self-determination and an election boycott have been the strongest in these three regencies and gained in intensity following the shootings in Krueng Geukueh village, some 15 kilometers west of here, on May 3. At least 41 civilians died in the incident when military personnel fired on a crowd of protesters.
"It is our right to can for international attention because we have been killed, tortured and raped for decades and the world should not close its eyes to this matter, "Abdullah said.
"What the Javanese have done to the Acehnese cannot be justified by any international law," he said.
The National Commission on Human Rights said at least 781 people were killed and thousands of others suffered, either through torture or the loss of family members, during the military operation which began in 1989.
The local government, however, said more than 1,000 were killed during the operation.
Large signs caning for a referendum were easily seen on the road from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh to Lhokseumawe.
"Referendum is the solution for Acehnese," read graffiti painted in English on a billboard in Pidie.
"It shows they are trying to internationalize the issue," a foreign photojournalist said.
The government has been criticized for failing to resolve past human rights abuses tin the oil-rich province. Accusations that Jakarta has plundered the wealth of Aceh have become another source of resentment against the central government.
"People here do not care about the elections. The elections are only for the people in Jakarta," a separatist member, Syukri bin Yusuf, 43, said at a second separatist base in' Pidie regency.
Local authorities said few people in Pidie. North Aceh and East Aceh registered to vote because separatist members intimidated them from participating in the elections. Jakarta even considered delaying the pods in these areas due to rising tension.
Syukri flatly denied separatist members intimidated local residents.
"We do not do things like that. The villagers are our own people and they have not wanted to participate in the elections from the beginning," he said.
Lilawangsa Regional Military Commander Col. Johnny Wahab, who oversees security in the three regencies last week dismissed fears the pods in Pidie, North Aceh and East Aceh would be delayed.
Although the elections did proceed as scheduled in the regencies, few people participated.
Security in Lhokseumawe was strengthened before the pops, with a number of light tanks and armored personnel carriers seen at the local military headquarters last Friday morning.
The local paper said last Friday the tanks and personnel carriers were deployed from the North Sumatran capital of Medan on Thursday evening.
Shop owners here also said last Friday they were going to close their businesses and leave for Medan on Saturday for fear of violence during the elections on Monday.