`Witnesses report three mass graves'

`Witnesses report three mass graves'

Agence France-Presse, Jakarta

Witnesses have told Indonesian national human rights
investigators about three separate mass graves in Indonesia's
Aceh province, an investigator said Tuesday.

"We have several reports from eyewitnesses who said they saw
several graves that aren't normal," M.M. Billah told AFP in
Jakarta.

Billah had led a team from the Indonesian National Commission
on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to the province to follow up a
report from its field representatives.

Troops are in their second month of an all-out offensive
against separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Billah
said the graves were in the Bireuen-North Aceh area, the scene of
intense activity during the operation.

About seven or eight bodies are located in a former reservoir,
he said, citing eyewitness reports.

"They saw for themselves there are bodies there," he said.

At another location about eight corpses are believed to be
inside a well, Billah said.

The third site is in a forest where people collecting wood
spotted bodies but were too afraid to collect them, he said after
interviewing witnesses in the area.

Komnas HAM says it does not know who carried out the killings
or when. Billah said his team hopes to visit the grave sites next
week.

Billah did not want to specify the exact location "because we
are afraid they will be opened like the ones in Central Aceh."

The Indonesian military was quoted on three separate occasions
last week as saying soldiers were examining three other mass
graves in Central, West and South Aceh.

They blamed GAM for the killings, a charge the rebels denied.

A newspaper photograph on Saturday showed soldiers helping to
excavate the Central Aceh grave.

Billah said graves should only be excavated by police
accompanied by experts.

Lt. Col. Yani Basuki, spokesman for the Aceh military
operation, was quoted in Monday's Jakarta Post as saying the
military did not initiate the excavations. Soldiers were simply
helping villagers with the work, he said.