HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE IN ACEH HORRENDOUS, SAYS RESEARCHER
By Peter Kammerer, Foreign Editor

November 17, 2003 – (South China Morning Post) Indonesia's military occupation of the separatist province of Aceh has resulted in grave human rights abuses and a humanitarian crisis, claims an Australian researcher who spent five months in an Aceh prison.

Lesley McCulloch, a senior fellow with Deakin University in Melbourne, was released from prison in February and has since been working among refugees in Kuala Lumpur.

She and American nurse Joy-Lee Sadler were arrested for visa violations, although the academic said it was because she had been investigating
Indonesian military and police corruption.

Indonesia launched its offensive in May after the collapse of internationally mediated peace talks with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for an independent state since 1976.

Last week, the government extended martial law for another six months after rejecting calls for a ceasefire and a new round of talks by Japan, the
European Union, the United States and the World Bank.

Ms McCulloch said that while life in Aceh's towns was as normal as could be given the occupation, the situation in rural areas was "horrendous".

Many males over the age of 14 had gone into hiding because the military and police viewed them as potential fighters for GAM. Women were being targeted, through rape and strip searches, to get to the men.

Food and medicine was in short supply and children were not being educated in many areas.

Aid agencies were unable to work because they had been accused of helping GAM fighters and the military insisted on distributing supplies.

"Civilians are suffering," Ms McCulloch said. "Targeting the women - forcing them to strip in public and all the sexual abuse - is a way of destroying the social fabric of society. The trouble is it creates more anger and only strengthens support for GAM."

She compared the plight of Acehnese to East Timorese before Indonesia ended its 24-year occupation in 1999. "Before being arrested, I saw militias - I know they're backed by the military," she said. "Everything that happened in East Timor is happening in Aceh."

The Malaysian human rights organisation Suaram and the Jakarta office of the International Crisis Group said they had been told of such claims, but were unable to verify them.

The executive director of Suaram, Cynthia Gabriel, said from Kuala Lumpur yesterday that confirming Ms McCulloch's claims was impossible because of a lack of independent information. Indonesia had banned foreigners and journalists from going to Aceh.

"I'm reluctant to confirm or not confirm what's going on there," Ms Gabriel said. "But people who have managed to escape speak of the situation being very, very bad. They say there's malnutrition and a lack of medical supplies."

Ms McCulloch's assessment is based on interviews with the 30,000-strong Acehnese refugee community in Malaysia.

The International Crisis Group's Sidney Jones said her view from talking to activists was mixed.

"That there have been rapes is unquestioned," Ms Jones said. "There is also no question that the military has carried out executions, but there have also been executions on the part of GAM and they've also taken hostages.

"We just don't get the pictures, though, from the people coming back and forth from Aceh, of atrocities taking place on the scale of previous military operations."

The Indonesia military is the only source of information on the province, where 12,000 people have been killed as a result of the 27-year conflict.
At least 1,000 people have died since May and thousands more have been arrested.

A military official said yesterday that troops had killed 16 suspected rebels, including two women.

A court in the northern city of Lhokseumawe on Saturday sentenced rebel leader Mustafa Ibrahim to 17 years in prison on charges of treason.

From:

TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign
111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath, Croydon CR7 8HW, UK.
tel +44 (0)20 8771 2904 fax +44 (0)20 8653 0322
tapol@gn.apc.org http://tapol.gn.apc.org