TITLE: The Horror of Aceh, the Day the Soldiers Came

AUTHOR: Lindsay Murdoch

PUB: The Age

DATE: May 14, 2001

Zubaidad was boiling a big pot of water before preparing lunch in her village in the rebellious Indonesian province of Aceh when five soldiers burst through the door of her bamboo hut mid-morning. "Where's your husband?" they demanded of the 25-year-old mother. "Where are the men?" "They have gone," she said, clutching her four-month-old son, who she was still to name, as is Acehnese custom. The soldiers snatched the baby from Zubaidad's arms, threw him on the ground outside the hut and poured boiling water over him. Zubaidad's 15-year-old sister, Umu Kalsum, who was also in the hut at the time, trembles with fear as she tells of the terror as Jakarta's soldiers launched a new wave of violence against unarmed civilians. The sisters had heard that Indonesian soldiers had arrived on trucks in Ujung Reuba village, 20 kilometres east of the industrial city of Lhokseumawe. But there was little hope of escaping into the jungle carrying Zubaidad's son and two children, who belonged to relatives, also in their care. Besides, when the soldiers had come before to the village they had hunted only rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Umu told The Age that as she and Zubaidad tried to protect the three children they were beaten and kicked. She said she saw one soldier, helped by another, pour the boiling water. "I saw it through the doorway," Umu said. "The baby was lying face down. They also kicked the other children." A two-month-old baby suffered a fractured arm. The soldiers told Zubaidad and Umu that if they left the hut they would be killed. For the next four hours the severely burnt baby lay on the ground metres from the hut as the soldiers went on a killing, looting and burning spree through the village. When the soldiers finally left with their trucks loaded with everything of value in the village, Zubaidad tried to treat her blistering baby with traditional medicines. The soldiers had stolen her family's life's savings, which could have paid for treatment at a clinic a few kilometres away. The baby died at sunrise the next morning. His ashes are buried in a shallow grave marked only by a stone. Pressured by sections of the Indonesian military and some cabinet members, the government in Jakarta last month approved what it called a "limited" military operation in the province at the northern tip of Sumatra. President Abdurrahman Wahid said the operation was necessary to protect vital installations, including natural gas fields. But the arrival of hundreds of fresh troops has seen the military unleash a wave of largely unreported violence that in some areas is worse than atrocities committed in East Timor in 1999. Almost all the houses in Ujung Reuba, which until the May 6 attack was home to 385 villagers, are now burnt to the ground or trashed. As well as Zubaidad's baby, the soldiers killed three elderly men who could not run away. One of them, Abdul Gani, in his early 70s, buried himself in mud in a rice field but gave himself up when soldiers came searching."The old man got up when the soldiers were approaching. We were buried further on, so his action saved us," said Ainun Marliah, 40, a mother of five. "They dragged him away. His body was found badly beaten in a burnt-out house." Across Aceh the intensifying military operation following the deployment of a 1000-strong Indonesian force especially trained in anti-guerrilla warfare and new orders for 30,000 other police and soldiers that were already stationed here appears to be turning a long-simmering struggle for independence into all-out war. The operation has set back peace talks between government negotiators and secessionist leaders that held out the promise of a permanent, if shaky, ceasefire. It has also made a mockery of the Indonesian Government's repeated promises to use a non-violent approach to end fighting that has claimed more than 400 lives this year, the highest death rate since the Acehnese began fighting for their independence a quarter of a century ago. Acehnese leaders are comparing the latest operation to a brutal military campaign, ordered by the former dictator Suharto, that fuelled a tide of hatred and suspicion of the government in Jakarta and left thousands dead and hundreds missing.Analysts say that Aceh, a heavily mountainous but resource-rich area, could be the trigger that leads to the Balkanisation of Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous nation. If the Free Aceh Movement, which has a guerrilla force of up to 27,000, succeeds in winning independence, analysts say, separatist efforts are likely to intensify in other parts of Indonesia, especially Irian Jaya (West Papua). Jakarta has officially outlawed GAM. The movement's origins can be traced to Aceh's unique historical identity, its role in Indonesia's struggle for independence against the Dutch, decades of repression and the ripping off of its economic development (less than 5 per cent of the benefits flowing to Jakarta from Aceh actually come back to the Acehnese.) But GAM controls many of the province's villages. Indonesia's administration has virtually collapsed. Courts barely function, while GAM administers a traditional justice system that sees offenders mostly fined or sent away from the area where they live. GAM issues marriage licences and property deeds and collects taxes for its own use. In early March the giant US-owned ExxonMobil closed production of its natural gas fields near Lhokseumawe and evacuated workers after receiving a demand, allegedly from GAM, for US$50,000 ($A96,000) per month for security. GAM denies the claim. It also denies its rebels were responsible for attacks on the company's facilities. Unlike other parts of Indonesia, the country's flags do not fly outside most schools and many government buildings. When a carload of foreign journalists were stopped last week at a military checkpoint on the main highway between the provincial capital Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe, scores of children at a school a few metres away started chanting "Aceh Merdeka", or Free Aceh. Soldiers and police in the province live in fear of attack. They peer from behind sandbagged posts along the main roads, their rifles at the ready. Soldiers and police usually travel only in armored personnel carriers or trucks sitting behind iron shields. "Aceh is in a state of siege," said a fish merchant in a village near Lhokseumawe. "No side is showing mercy. The situation is getting worse every day. "The military take people away who they suspect of supporting GAM. Some are tortured. Others never come back. But GAM also reacts harshly to people who are not loyal to its cause." GAM's rebels are known to brutally treat captured police and soldiers, and are accused of engaging in extortion, abduction and extrajudicial killings. They conduct regular ambushes of military convoys and raids on military posts and complexes. A leading pro-Indonesian politician was shot dead last week as he left evening prayers at a mosque in Banda Aceh. With little international support, a large part of GAM's funding is believed to come from the illegal trade in marijuana. GAM's political representatives work openly from a hotel room in Banda Aceh, where they distribute press releases and monitor the military operation. Najhiruddin bin Achmad, one of the representatives who is involved in peace talks facilitated by the Henry Dunant Centre in Switzerland, said the fighting will continue unless Aceh wins its independence. Mr Najhiruddin rules out the movement agreeing to Jakarta's offer of wide autonomy, and plays down the proposed introduction of syariah, or Islamic law. "There will be no compromise on the question of independence," he said END top