Thousands of Acehnese ready to take refuge

Nani Farida, The Jakarta Post, Lhokseumawe, Aceh

Despite the apparent normalcy, hundreds of thousands of residents of North Aceh, a stronghold of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), are preparing to flee their villages and take refuge if the government launches a military operation.

Last week, when President Megawati Soekarnoputri ordered the military to prepare for operations to quell the separatist movement, some locals remained skeptical and others were confused about what they should do.

"Now most people have packed up their belongings to take with them to the refugee camps. Even more, most of the houses in the villages where rebels were hiding have been vacated. The situation looks normal but the people are anxious about the possibility of war.

"Thousands of people have joined thousands of others already taking refuge in the Grand Mosque and a school in Bireuen," Maryani, an elementary school teacher in Simpang Keuramat, North Aceh, told The Jakarta Post here on Friday.

She added that many people had left for North Sumatra and Java to join family members there because of the uncertainty in the regency.

Mariani said she regretted that the government and the international community had not listened to the Acehnese people's urgings that a peaceful solution to the Aceh question be found, adding that the people would be the victims of war.

"GAM and the military should fight their war in unpopulated areas because the people just want to live in peace. Many people are living in fear and they are still traumatized from the previous military operation in the 1990s," she said.

The 35-year-old Mariani said a new military operation would create another lost generation in the province, with education being halted and schools being devastated.

"We are now seeing tens of thousands of children who did not go to school and who are illiterate as a result of the last war. More and more children will be deprived of a formal education and more Acehnese will be expelled from their homes if a new military operation is launched," she said.

She called on Megawati to listen not only to her aides and foreign countries but also the people of Aceh, who are fearful of being expelled from their homes and having their lives devastated.

Teuku Usman, who along with his family and neighbors in Takengon, Central Aceh, has taken refuge in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province. He is still hopeful the problems in the province can be solved peacefully, ending the suffering of the people.

"We don't know where we will go because our houses have already been burned down by unidentified people. We call on the people of Banda Aceh to allow us to stay here for awhile until we can find someplace else to go that is safe," he said, adding that the refugees had already moved to three different mosques in the city.

The government has deployed hundreds of soldiers along the border between Aceh and North Sumatra to prevent rebels from infiltrating the neighboring province.

North Sumatra Governor T. Rizal Nurdin said there were already about 11,000 Acehnese refugees in the province, and that he had instructed his aides to prepare for more refugees if a military operation was launched.

There are also thousands of Acehnese living in Riau after having fled previous violence.