ACEH YOUTH TRAUMATIZED BY HORRORS OF SEPARATIST WAR

December 1, 2003 – (AP) Accused of being a spy for the Acehnese rebels by the Indonesian security forces who allegedly beat him for days, 16-year-old Milo Andrian now sits motionless in a mental hospital and gazes blankly into space.

He no longer recognizes his own mother.

In Aceh, Indonesia's westernmost province where the government is waging an all-out offensive against separatist rebels, young people are falling victim to the violence committed by both sides.

A 15-year-old boy recounted seeing his neighbors dragged from a home with plastic ropes around their necks and then shot point-blank by soldiers.

"I could see their brains splattered on the banana trees," he said.

Masked men, most likely rebels, assassinated an orphanage director in full view of the 60 orphans. A bullet grazed the rib cage of a teenage orphan. The youth recounted: "I looked down and saw blood seeping through my blouse. My body felt hot all over and I blacked out."

The 27-year-old civil war has its roots in an independence struggle that has been going on in one form or another since 1870, when the Dutch invaded what was then an Islamic sultanate.

The conflict was reignited in 1976, after Jakarta broke a promise to give Aceh autonomy and the Acehnese accused the government of having siphoned off revenues from the province's vast natural resources.

Some 12,000 people - most of them civilians - have been killed.

There have been repeated efforts to settle the conflict, but a cease-fire brokered by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center last year and endorsed by the international community collapsed in May due to mistrust on both sides.

Jakarta accused the rebels of using the brief lull in fighting to campaign for independence and of rearming themselves. The rebels accused the
government of failing to honor its promises to withdraw troops from offensive positions.

Conflict Muddied By Other Crimes

The authorities have sharply curtailed news coverage and foreign aid work in Aceh since the government declared martial law in the restive province following the failed peace talks.

However, an Associated Press reporter was able to visit Aceh and interview villagers caught in the crossfire of Asia's longest-running war - and
discovered numerous children traumatized by what they have experienced.

Since the latest offensive began, Aceh's main cities have regained a semblance of normality, with shootings, bombings and kidnappings on the decline. But there are fears that Indonesia's military and police are committing widespread human rights abuses in their drive to root out rebels in the countryside.

By the government's own count, more than 1,000 suspected rebels have been killed, besides 300 civilians, since May. Rights workers suspect the number of civilian victims is much higher.

The authorities brush aside allegations of torture of minors and insist that they arrest and convict rebels only when there is sufficient evidence.

No figures are available on the number of children killed, injured or arrested.Some rebels of the Free Aceh Movement admit they recruit children as young as 13 to pass messages, warn their fighters when government troops are near or bring food and coffee to their jungle hide-outs.

But the family of Andrian - who was sentenced to eight months in prison for treason - said he did none of that.

They described his trial as a farce in which no witnesses were brought to court. He confessed to giving information to the rebels only after being
tortured, they said.

"He couldn't stand the beatings any more and he changed. His gaze became blank. He didn't know who I was," Asbuni, Andrian's mother and a 43-year-old teacher, told AP at the mental hospital where her son was taken early last month.

She said she visited him in a police jail cell and saw dried blood and knife marks on his face. His legs were black and blue from beatings, she said.

Asbuni fears her son will be sent back to jail to serve the remainder of his sentence, which ends in February.

Aceh's military commander, Major General Bambang Darmono, told AP he knew of no cases of soldiers violating the human rights of minors.

"I always tell my soldiers: Never torture children and women," he said.

In a surprising admission, however, the general said beating rebels is acceptable as long as they aren't seriously hurt.

"For example, my soldier slugs a suspect across the face. That's no problem.

As long as he is able to function after the questioning.

"If it's gross torture which causes someone to be incapacitated ... that's a no-no," he said.

Many fear the plight of civilians in Aceh will only worsen with Jakarta's Nov. 6 decision to extend martial law in the province for another six months.

"Andrian is only one tragic victim of this long-running war," said Dr. Kris Wardoyo, a psychiatrist who has been treating him. "The conflict is breeding hatred and hostility in the next generation, and the cycle of violence continues."

The 15-year-old boy who said he saw his neighbors being dragged, kicked and shot believes only one of the three victims belonged to the Free Aceh Movement.

"The soldiers sprayed bullets in their heads at close range, yelling: 'You rebels! You rebels!' " he said, asking not to be named for fear of reprisals from the military.

His story was corroborated by around 30 other villagers. The boy, they said, stood closest to where the shooting took place.

Mariati, a small, wispy young woman who has just turned 18, said that in September, masked men shot dead her orphanage's director, Tengku Zakaria, 2 meters from where she was sitting at the institution's entrance. The bullets grazed her ribs.

"I woke up four days later in hospital, aching pain all over my body," she said, adding she still has nightmares.

Most of the children at the orphanage in the village of Usi Daya had been taken in by Zakaria after their parents were killed during the war. Many of the orphans personally witnessed the shootings of their parents.

According to Zakaria's son, Tengku Rahmatullah, who now runs the orphanage, Zakaria took in a 10-year-old boy whose entire family had been killed. The youngster had been scavenging for food in the village's garbage bins.So far, no one has been named a suspect in Zakaria's killing, but the villagers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from the rebels, said insurgents had demanded money from Zakaria and threatened to kill him if he refused to pay.

Aceh's cities appear safer now than they did before the offensive began, but suspected kidnappings by security forces have highlighted the lawlessness that has fueled the conflict for decades.

In the district capital of Bireun, six young men, aged between 17 and 22, disappeared last month when they set out on brand new motorbikes to cruise the town.

"I am sure rebels did not kidnap them and they didn't run away from their families," said Anwar Yusuf, a legislator who is also their neighbor.
"Which rebel would dare to come to this town? It's heavily guarded by the police and under military control," he said.

An uncle of one of the missing youths said he heard the voice of his 17-year-old nephew pleading for help from a police cell. The uncle suspects
the boys were taken because the police wanted to steal their motorbikes - a charge the police deny.

The conflict in Aceh has long been muddied by gun and drug running, extortion, kidnapping and other common crimes committed by both the rebels and authorities.

Most of the Acehnese support independence but are less enthusiastic about the rebels and their violent tactics. Instead, the Acehnese have called for the government to allow an independence referendum similar to the one the United Nations sponsored successfully in 1999 in East Timor, which Indonesia had dominated.

Legislator Yusuf said: "We are squeezed from many sides. Military operations are one way of stopping violence from the rebels, but we feel that true, lasting peace is a long, long way off."

-Edited by Dawn Lye

Received from Joyo Indonesia News

From:
Paul Barber
TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign,
25 Plovers Way, Alton Hampshire GU34 2JJ
Tel/Fax: 01420 80153
Email: plovers@gn.apc.org
Internet: http://tapol.gn.apc.org
Defending victims of oppression in Indonesia,
1973-2003