U.S SUPPORTING INDOENSIAN MILITARY OFFENSIVE IN ACEH

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Raisethefist.com: U.S SUPPORTING INDOENSIAN MILITARY OFFENSIVE IN ACEH

U.S SUPPORTING INDOENSIAN MILITARY OFFENSIVE IN ACEH
by xz Tue May 27 23:17:35 PDT 2003

IT IS ONLY GETTING WORSE IN ACEH

The situation is growing ever more grave in Aceh where Indonesian government troops continue their offensive in the rebel province and are killing civilians at will. Residents of Cot Raboe, a village six miles from the town of Bireuen, set in a copse of tropical trees and surrounded by rice paddies and shrimp ponds, said they were woken at 5.30am yesterday by the sound of gunfire outside their homes. Musafari, a community leader, said: "There were well over 100 soldiers charging through the village, and a helicopter hovering overhead. "We were all too afraid to come out of our houses to see what was really going on." Another villager, Sayful, said the soldiers barged into his house. "They told me to get up and then they just pulled me out of the house and started hitting me with a piece of wood," he said. "They kept asking where the rebels were. I said there weren't any, but they didn't listen." The shooting lasted for more than 30 minutes. The villagers said that when they emerged from their homes they found that one young man had been killed in the village and three teenagers and two 12-year-olds lay dead in the rice paddies and fish ponds. "My son, Annas Nazir Abdurrahman, had been shot four times, in the head, chest, thigh and calf," said Mohammed Nazir of one of the youngest victims. Nazir found his son's body in an unplanted, water-filled paddy field, about 10 metres from the bamboo and thatch hut from where he and his four friends had been guarding the fields and ponds. Two others were found in the same paddy fields. Sarjani bin Amaruddin, another villager, said: "I was chased into one of the shrimp ponds, with bullets pinging all around me. But then instead of killing me they pulled me out and started beating me with their rifles." He had an inverted V-shape of bruises and cuts the length of his torso. In the small center of Cot Ijeuh, near in north-eastern Aceh, 10 bodies were counted, including that of a 12-year-old boy, while another 8 people lost their lives in Cot Batee, also near Bireuen. A resident of Cot Batee, who requested anonymity said he had seen around a hundred soldiers storm the village, capture some people and execute them on the spot. A BBC reporter went to another village and heard similar claims. "I got there just as the Indonesian army patrol was leaving," reporter Orlando de Guzman said. Mapa Mamplam villagers said at least eight young men were killed. The youngest was 11, another 13, another 14. None of the remaining five were over 20, they said. "They asked the victims to stand in front of the rice fields and then they killed them one by one in the back and then they threw their bodies to the rice field," a villager said.

Rebels accused government troops of lining up villagers, shooting them to death and forcing relatives to bury them. "It's basically a massacre against civilians," rebel spokesman Tengku Sofyan Dawood said. "This is not a clash or a gun battle between rebels and the military. It's the military shooting innocent civilians. They woke up villagers who were sleeping in a hut by shrimp farms, lined them up and shot them all to death," Dawood said.

Australian academic Damien Kingsbury said that based on sources inside Aceh, that not just schools were now being burnt but houses and villages as well. "The history of GAM (Free Aceh Movement) in Aceh has been they haven�t done this. If you look at the history, the form of the TNI (Indonesian military) in places like East Timor, and indeed in Aceh in the past, they have a track record of burning schools and doing things like this. There�s suddenly a huge influx of the Indonesian military into Aceh and we see this pattern being repeated." Also as part of their offensive Indonesia's navy and marines have launched an attack on islands off the coast from Banda Aceh, claiming they were bases for rebel recruitment and arms smuggling. Five hundred Acehnese families were driven onto war ships during the attack. All these measures have only one purpose: to terrorize the local population and drive them from their homes. The military tactics are completely in line with what has been described as the "humanitarian" component of the "integrated operation". To "protect" civilians in the war zone, the government plans to forcibly herd them into camps under military guard. Indeed, Indonesian Minister of Social Affairs Bachtiar Chamsyah announced on Monday that his officials were preparing 82 temporary camps near major towns and cities for up to 200,000 people. "We are waiting for an order from the military administration should they want to comb a certain area in searches for rebels, we will move the local people from their homes." Mustafi Glanggang, chief of the Bireuen regency where the first relocation is planned, said that the people could not refuse to leave. "It won�t happen that people won�t want to go. Their position is very weak. If the [TNI] tells them to go they will move as nobody will be able to protect them," he said.

Mahmood Malik, whom GAM rebels consider their prime minister, has called on the United Nations to immediately intervene in the conflict. "We appeal to the United Nations for its immediate involvement in the resolution of the Aceh conflict and for an international fact-finding mission to be sent to Aceh to investigate the crimes against humanity that have been committed," a communique said. Mahmood also called on countries which supplied arms to Indonesia to prohibit their use in the province.

As if to add insult to injury, Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, who is accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor, failed to appear before a human rights court in Jakarta yesterday for the third time in succession because he is helping supervise the military assault in Aceh. Not that it probably matters. An Indonesian Court last night acquitted a former Indonesian military commander accused of human rights violations in East Timor. Brigadier General Tono Suratman, accused of failing to prevent massacres, is the 12th defendant to be acquitted by the court, infuriating human rights groups.

Finally, anti-war activists from Australia, South Korea and South Africa were detained in Indonesia last night. The activists were in Indonesia attending an International peace conference. They were arrested at a peaceful rally which was called in conjunction with the conference. The rally called for an end to global militarism and an end to the war on Aceh. A number of Indonesian participants were also arrested and beaten.

Has anyone seen any of this on CNN? Sources: Channel News Asia, Asia Pacific, Jakarta Post, IMC/Jakarta, MISNA, Melbourne Herald Sun New Zealand Herald, Guardian, WSWS

From an Indonesian Human Rights Network news release, dated just before the military operation:

U.S.-made military aircraft being readied for the scorched earth assault include two F-16 Fighting Falcon multi-role fighter jets, six OV-10 Bronco counter-insurgency aircraft, five S-58 Twinpack helicopters, and six C-130 Hercules tactical transport planes.

From a release shortly afterward:

Indonesia is currently using U.S.-supplied weaponry and combat aircraft in their war in Aceh. On Monday C-130 Hercules transport planes dropped hundreds of TNI paratroopers into Aceh and counter-insurgency aircraft, OV-10 Broncos, were used to fire rockets into villages outside of the capital city of Banda Aceh.

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