|
|
|
|
TITLE: Woman, Daughter Killed in Aceh Province on Eve of Peace Talks |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: AFP |
DATE: February 14, 2001 |
|
A gunfight between Indonesian soldiers and suspected Aceh separatist ebels left a woman and her eight-month-old daughter killed by stray bullets on Wednesday, police said. The shootout erupted when rebels attacked a patrol of about 30 soldiers and police in the village of Matangmane in North Aceh early in the morning, police spokesman Adjutant Commissioner Abdi Darmawan told AFP. The woman was holding her daughter when the bullets hit them, Darmawan said, adding that a soldier and four residents were seriously wounded in the incident. The violence in Aceh came representatives from the Jakarta government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were preparing for peace talks in Switzerland, scheduled to start Thursday. On Tuesday three people were found dead and another six injured in Aceh, police and residents said. Sources told AFP in Geneva that two days of talks between separatists and government officials will begin on Thursday, the last day of a one month shaky ceasefire. However, in Aceh three corpses were collected by Indonesian Red Cross volunteers in the Greater Aceh district on Tuesday, hospital sources said. An unidentified body, badly decomposed, was picked up from Unjon Batee in Aceh Besar. Another two corpses were found in a gunny-sack in the Krueng Cut river, six kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the capital Banda Aceh. "Both victims died of torture," staff at the city's Zainal Abidin Hospital said. In the North Aceh village of Cot Murong, police and soldiers shot and injured two residents and arrested two others Wednesday, a GAM spokesman on a ceasefire monitoring committee, Amni Bin Ahmad Marzuki, said. Residents in the North Aceh village, Panggoi, said three women were shot repeatedly in their homes by a man -- identified by police as GAM -- with a pistol overnight Monday. But the police claim was rejected by GAM who said the gunman was armed by security forces. The victims, a mother, daughter and a neighbour, were in a critical condition, North Aceh police chief Assistant Commissioner Wanto Sumardi said. He added a local North Aceh political leader, Hamis Usman, was shot and injured by two GAM men on a motorbike. GAM deputy commander, Sofyan Daud, said his men were not responsible. And in Pidie, an officer from the elite police squad Brimob died in hospital, and his death appeared to be accidental. An eyewitness said the officer was holding a gun when a bullet hit his head, but Pidie Police Chief Commissioner Heru Budi Ersanto, said he had slipped and hit his head. Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab has hinted at an extension of the current ceasefire -- which began on January 15 -- claiming there had been "progress and a decrease in violence." The two sides entered a six-month-long truce in June last year. In 2000 more than 1,000 people were killed. More than 150 have died this year. GAM has been fighting for an independent Muslim state in the oil and mineral rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra since the mid- 1970s. Jakarta has ruled out independence for Aceh but pledged broad autonomy. END |