TNI needs people's support for Aceh military operation

JAKARTA (JP): Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said on Saturday that the Indonesian Military (TNI) would need national support prior to conducting a military operation in the troubled Aceh province.

"We (the TNI), of course, need political approval to implement the military operation in Aceh.

"But national support is needed more to conduct our operation there. Our victory in the battlefield does not depend on our (military) strength, but on support from the people," Endriartono said while addressing a round-table discussion on major security problems organized by the Research Institute for Democracy and Peace (RIDeP) and German-based Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).

The government has decided that the TNI will only conduct a "security operation" in Aceh, not a "limited military operation", as part of the government's policy to restore security in the province.

Endriartono asked groups within the nation not to force the TNI to demand a military operation in Aceh without the people's support.

"We can learn from the United States, when they held a military operation in Vietnam in the mid 1960s.

"It was not the troops' incapability that caused the United States to suffer defeat in the war, it was because of the lack of support from the people, who could not understand why their husbands or sons died in the Vietnamese battlefields," Endriartono said.

Back in Aceh, Governor Abdullah Puteh asked local people to join hands in a reconciliatory effort to establish better conditions in the province.

"We have to start promoting love in our hearts and put aside all of the hatred," Abdullah said, while addressing a gathering at the Baiturrahman Mosque in Aceh's capital Banda Aceh commemorating the Islamic New Year, as quoted by Antara.

Outside the mosque, hundreds of students and youth activists held a rally rejecting all military approaches to solving Aceh's problems.

The rally, which began at 10:00 a.m., was held under the relaxed supervision of security personnel. It peacefully ended at 1 p.m..

Earlier on Sunday, an Indonesian police officer, identified as First Brig. Yukirman Tanjung, was shot dead by two gunmen while he was jogging at Ulee Lhue beach in Aceh Besar.

"The two attackers were riding a motorcycle when they shot Yukirman. The officer died on the spot and his body was to be flown to his hometown in Padang, West Sumatra, later on Monday," Banda Aceh police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Sayed Husaini said, as quoted by Antara.

Meanwhile, a man named Syarifuddin, 60, and his wife Misnah, 55, of Kuala Unga village, Jaya subdistrict, West Aceh regency, were reportedly shot dead at their residence by an unidentified person at about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Earlier on Saturday, a civilian named Syukri, 30, was shot dead by an unknown gunman near the Syah Kuala University, about seven kilometers away from Banda Aceh, the Agence France Presse reported.

The victim's parents told journalists that a group of men had abducted Syukri from his house late on Friday night.

"He (Syukri) was dragged out of the house and taken away. I found out about his death just this morning," the victim's father said.

In North Aceh, five army trucks traveling from the Lhokseumawe gas fields, operated by ExxonMobil Indonesia, narrowly escaped land mines set on the Medan-Banda Aceh highway on Friday evening, a police spokesman said.

There were no injuries as the mines exploded just after the convoy drove past, the spokesman said, accusing rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) of setting the trap.

But GAM deputy commander for Pase region, Sofyan Daud, denied his men's involvement.

ExxonMobil, which supplies one of Indonesia's two major liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, was forced to close three of its five gas fields in Aceh on March 9, citing growing threats from separatists there. (02)