Violence continues amid peace talks
Violence continues amid peace talks
BANDA ACEH, Aceh (JP): Violence continued in Aceh as
Indonesian Police and Military officers held talks with the Free
Aceh Movement (GAM) on Thursday and Friday, officials said.
As of Friday afternoon, no immediate results had been
revealed.
Friday's talks involved government representatives Sr. Comr.
Suyitno, Sr. Comr. Manahan Daulay and Sr. Comr. Ridwan Karim,
while GAM was represented by three deputy operational commanders,
including Tengku Amri bin Abdul Wahab and Tengku Saiful bin Moh.
Ali. Two members of the monitoring team, Muhammad Daim and
Nasrullah Dahlawi, were also in attendance.
Director of the Humanitarian Pause Information Center Oemardi
said the closed-door meeting was a continuation of the previous
meeting on a cease-fire between the two sides which ended on Feb.
20.
The agenda for the talks included a discussion on the details
of the security pact agreed on by Jakarta and GAM last week after
two days of talks at a secret location in Switzerland, Sr. Comr.
Ridwan said on Thursday.
The pact, details of which have yet to be released, is
designed to replace a month-long truce in Aceh.
"Both sides will intensify dialogs among their commanders at
the district level," he said.
The two conflicting sides would also be able to widen the
dialog by involving other elements in Aceh so that the process
could "evolve into some kind of a popular consultation between
all the groups involved."
In Pidie, a civilian was found dead with gunshot wounds and
seven others were injured on Friday following an overnight raid
by joint military-police personnel who arrived in 10 trucks and
one armored vehicle at Blang Lam Kaca village in Nila district.
"The routine operation was conducted due to a report of a GAM
base in the area but when the security forces were passing the
village, gunmen fired at them from the bushes," Adj. Sr. Comr.
Heru Budi Ersanto said.
The security forces claimed they succeeded in locating the GAM
base in the jungle near the village and seized documents, boots,
GAM military uniforms and various other pieces of equipment, but
the rebels had already fled under covering fire.
The dead man, M. Yusuf Rasyid, was found in a yard near the
village along with a man named Ilyas Zakaria who was in critical
condition when found by locals and Indonesian Red Cross (PMI)
officials on Friday.
GAM's Abu Razak, however, said that there was no GAM base in
the area.
GAM rebels also attacked the military's missile base in the
hilly Pulo Rungkom region in Dewantara district, about 30
kilometers west of Lhokseumawe, near the PT Arun Gas LNG plant
late on Thursday.
The camp was attacked with mortars.
"The attack began at 7:30 p.m., but the mortars missed the
target as they fell behind the missile base," North Aceh Police
chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Wanto Sumardi said on Friday.
GAM's Abu Sofyan Daud said he deployed 30 of his men to attack
the compound for about 20 minutes.
"We managed to damage the base and injured a soldier. This
blitz is a warning to those officers who keep on conducting
security operations and have established a military post at Babah
Krueng village (about 10 kilometers away from the missile base).
"If the TNI keeps on behaving like this, then we'll keep on
attacking them," he said.
Meanwhile, two bodies with severe gunshot wounds were found
separately in South Aceh on Thursday. They were identified as 53-
year-old Abdurrahman of Kuala Batee district and Alimuddin of
Kluet Selatan district.
In East Aceh, a 28-year-old civilian named Salahuddin Hasan
was found dead with gunshot wounds in Blang Paseh district on
Thursday.
"The body has been removed to Langsa General Hospital," Yusuf
Puteh, a humanitarian activist, said on Friday. (50/51/edt)