Six people killed in

Six people killed in
fresh Aceh violence

Ibnu Mat Noor
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

At least six people were killed in restive Aceh province on
Friday, officials and humanitarian activists said on Saturday.

In Pidie regency, four male bodies with gunshot wounds were
found at the side of the road in Meureudu village, about 160
kilometers east of Banda Aceh.

Pidie Military District chief Lt. Col. Supartodi said that the
four bodies were members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM)
separatist rebels who were killed in a military raid on a rebel
base about one kilometer away from the village.

GAM spokesman in Pidie, Abu Razak, however, quickly denied
the claim. "They were not GAM members, they were merely
civilians," the rebel said.

In West Aceh another rebel was killed on Friday in a fierce
gunfight with the military in Meunasah Rayeuk Lamno village, some
100 kilometers south of Banda Aceh, said Indonesian Military
(TNI) spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin.

An unidentified male body with gunshot wounds was also
discovered in Samalanga village in Bireun regency, some 200
kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Friday. The body was taken to
Dr. Fauziah Bireuen general hospital, chief of Samalanga
community health service Dr. Muchtar said.

In the first month of 2002, at least 28 people have been
killed in various incidents in Aceh. Among those killed this week
was a policeman who died in an armed skirmish near a
telecommunications shop in Langsa, East Aceh, on Thursday night.

GAM has been waging a guerrilla war in an attempt to forge an
independent Islamic state, separate from Indonesia, the world's
most populous Muslim country.

Central government awarded special autonomy status last year
to Aceh, which included a larger share of the province's natural
resources, gas and oil. President Megawati Soekarnoputri visited
Aceh last September.

A strong nationalist and daughter of founding father Sukarno,
Megawati has flatly rejected the rebels' secessionist demands.