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Indonesian Army Says Ready To Crush Aceh Separatists
by Kazi Mahmood for IslamOnline
KUALA LUMPUR, March14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Indonesian government on Monday granted the military fresh hope to prove itself capable of terminating the separatist conflict in the restive province of Aceh by declaring the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) a secessionist group.
On Wednesday, the armed forces of Indonesia (TNI) and other military commands in Aceh province said they were ready to crush the separatists and restore peace and patriotism by eliminating the GAM.
The TNI said it will very soon launch limited military operations against the GAM.
"The government has already ruled that GAM is a separatist movement. In legal terms it is of a subversive nature…Security operations will immediately be conducted there," said Defense Minister Muhammad Mahfud M.D. Wednesday.
A stronger statement was made by Army chief General Endriartono Sutarto, who said that soldiers are ready to be deployed in Aceh to crack down against the separatists.
"Your task is to finish them off. You are sent there not to fight against the Aceh people, but to free them from GAM. Therefore you have no right to kill Aceh people," Endriartono said at a hearing with Parliament, repeating his order that soldiers be deployed to Aceh.
The government's decision to launch limited military operations against GAM came five days after Indonesia's exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was threatened by the separatist movement.
Sutarto disclosed that all troop units have been made ready to be deployed to Aceh. "In principle, all Army units have been prepared to be deployed to Aceh. But the final say, regarding the timing and the number of battalions to be deployed, rests with the commander of the Indonesian Defense Force," he said.
According to Sutarto, the mobilization of army units has been carried out in conjunction with the government's decision to solve the Aceh issue as soon as possible, particularly to overcome the resistance by armed civilian groups.
On Tuesday, Coordinating Minister for Social, Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told newsmen that the government has prepared small well-trained units of the defense force to overcome the GAM.
"The armed rebellion by GAM should be stopped by a military operation," Yudhoyono said.
The Indonesian government insisted that the GAM was too small a group to be handled by a massive military operation. It will not take the form of the Military Operation Zone (DOM) system that was in place for nine years until August 1998.
That military offensive under Suharto did not settle the Aceh issue, and instead caused the death of thousands of people and reinforced the GAM's determination to pursue its independence drive.
President B.J. Habibie terminated the military operation zone, widely criticized by human rights activists both locally and internationally for indiscriminate military violence and gross human rights violations.
Habibie ordered a total army retreat from the restive province, but had to concede to a minimal presence of the heavily armed TNI due to possible retalition from the GAM and the public against police and other officials in the province.
Last year, GAM representatives entered talks with the Indonesian government in Geneva and agreed on consecutive, but shaky, truce periods.
Despite the current truce, more than 200 people have been killed in violence in the province this year.
The government, however, has said it will continue the political process and expressed hope that the GAM would accept the wide-ranging autonomy it is offering.
Meanwhile, a pro-independence activist, Muhammad Nazar, walked out of his trial when the Banda Aceh District Court refused his appeal to call President Abdurrahman Wahid, or his representative, as a witness in a case against him.
"The accusation against me ... is that I insulted the government, in this case the government of President Wahid, therefore it is important for a witness from the government to come and say in what way I have insulted them," he told the hearing.
"I reject all testimonies in this court today, until the witness [Wahid] is made to appear in court," he told the court.
The Aceh activist, who faces seven years imprisonment if convicted, is accused of having insulted the legitimate government and disrupting public order.
The panel of judges, however, continued the trial and heard testimonies from three witnesses. It was later adjourned until March 20th.
Nazar was arrested in November, a few days after the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA) organized days of mass rallies involving tens of thousands of people in Banda Aceh to help push for a referendum.
It was the second mass rally in favor of a referendum. The previous year, SIRA held a similar peaceful mass rally of one million people in Banda Aceh.
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