The Indonesian military has reportedly been accused of committing atrocities in Aceh

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, January 26 (IslamOnline.net) - The Indonesian Human Rights Campaign (TAPOL) group told IslamOnline.net Monday, January 26, that it had genuine concerns over the fate of Acehnese prisoners in the war led by the Indonesian army against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

TAPOL further said that it has urged both the U.K. and the European Union (E.U.) to pressure the Indonesian government to abandon the war in Aceh.

TAPOL member Paul Barber, and Agus Wandi, an Acehnese citizen, have told IOL in phone interviews that they were deeply concerned over the fate of prisoners in Aceh and that the world did not know who the prisoners were in reality.

Members of the U.K.-based organization told IOL that there was no response from the U.K. or the E.U. or even the Indonesian regime on their calls for a return to the peace negotiations in Aceh.

“We hope the E.U. and the U.K. will put pressure on the Indonesian government, as they say they will do,” said Paul Barber to IOL.

The group last week sent a document to the UK’s foreign office urging the foreign secretary to put pressure on Indonesia ‘to abandon its fruitless attempt to impose a military solution’ on Aceh, the restive province in Sumatra where the military is conducting a 9 month long anti-insurgency campaign.

“We have very recent information of the displacement of some prisoners from Aceh to the Java island. Our argument is that there are no reasons to move the prisoners from Aceh, which violates legal procedures,” said Agus Wandi.

He added that fundamentally speaking, there was no due process in the handling of the cases of prisoners by the Indonesian military and government.

“Most of those arrested and jailed so far did not have a chance for due process. They were even sentenced without lawyers, and this happened in at least 40 percent of the cases,” he added.

“We even do not know who the prisoners are. Are they rebels from the GAM or are they simply those who had a political opinion over Aceh?” said Agus.

The Indonesian military has been accused by several human rights organizations of brutalities and of abusing the rights of the people of Aceh. It has also been accused of mistreating prisoners of war (POW’S) belonging to the GAM.

The Indonesian government resorted to war in Aceh after failing to allow the peace process that started in December 2002 to continue its course, the GAM said to IOL in a separate declaration on the war in Aceh.

The TAPOL referred to allegations of torture and ill-treatment against Acehnese citizens and gave a detailed report of such abuses as well as the absence of fair trails, denial of access to lawyers, no facilities to prepare a proper defense and no opportunity to present defense evidence to courts.

The group called on the U.K. foreign office to urge Indonesia to stop the war in Aceh and to return to the negotiation table with the GAM in a bid to end the conflict that has claimed the lives of thousands of Acehnese.

The TAPOL pressed the U.K. amid news that 36 British-made Scorpion light tanks are to be withdrawn from the battlefield and replaced with armored personnel carriers (APC's) equipped with light machine guns and grenade launchers made by Indonesia's own arms manufacturer, PT Pindad Indonesia.

The locally made vehicles are untested in combat but will be cheaper and easier to maintain than the Scorpions.

The military denied that the decision to withdraw the tanks had been as a result of political pressure from the U.K.

Though there has been no response from the E.U. or the U.K. on TAPOL request for added pressure on Jakarta to end the crisis in Aceh on the negotiation table, the Foreign Office is said to have reminded Jakarta that the sale contracts of the Scorpion tanks stipulated that the vehicles should be used only to defend Indonesian territory and people and not for internal offensive operations.

TAPOL, which monitors and campaigns against Indonesian rights abuses, believes the real reason is that the type of insurgency has changed from last May when martial law was declared.

TAPOL was in full offensive mode against Jakarta Thursday, January 22, over the treatment of prisoners, claiming in a press release that the rule of law was being abandoned as hundreds of Acehnese were jailed in political trials, reported the Laksamana website.

A total of 1553 Acehnese have been detained and interrogated. Of these, 756 have been convicted of crimes against the state and jailed for terms of between one and twenty years.

TAPOL claims many are political prisoners convicted on trumped-up charges because of their alleged political beliefs or allegiances and said they should be released "immediately and unconditionally".

"The condition of martial law in Aceh has created a situation where the military are practically running the place and the existing legal procedures are no longer valid," says TAPOL in the press release.

Claiming systematic violation of international standards of justice, TAPOL also expressed concern about the transfer of prisoners to detention centers in Central and East Java, far away from their homes and families.

On Thursday, 54 rebel prisoners were reportedly transferred to jails on the main island of Java to stop them fomenting separatism in their homeland.