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)