Uit de APC Nieuwsgroep: act.indonesia
Uit de APC Nieuwsgroep: act.indonesiaSINGAPORE BUSINESS TIMES
Wednesday, Aug. 12, 1998
• ASIAN VIEW
Forgotten tragedy in Indonesia
Aceh's Skull Hill has many gory tales of atrocities to tell
By Yang Razali Kassim
Getting at the truth: Gatra recounts Indonesian military's way of dealing with
the Free Aceh separatist movement
In a recent gruesome cover story on the situation on Aceh, the Indonesian
weekly magazine Gatra recounted the case of a man who was brought at gunpoint
by a soldier to a hill in Aceh. Teungku Ayub was given a live demonstration of
what could happen to rebels: a fellow villager, tied to a tree, was shot dead
and his body left to rot.
The incident took place in 1990 on what has come to be known as Bukit
Tengkorak, or Skull Hill. It was the Indonesian military's way of dealing with
the Free Aceh separatist movement -- Gerakan Aceh Merdeka -- and its
sympathisers.
According to Gatra, this wasn't the only such incident during a black period
from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.
Another villager who had his father abducted by the security forces tried to
find him at Skull Hill. There he stumbled upon corpses, some with their
rotting flesh eaten away by wild dogs.
There were also villages known as kampung janda -- villages of widows --
because their husbands had disappeared: either abducted, killed or had simply
fled into the jungles.
Skull Hill isn't the only place where dead bodies could be found. In Oct 1990,
Reuters reported of another killing field in Alue Ie Mirah in East Aceh.
The atrocities in 1990 could have been the peak of a military crackdown on
Free Aceh which saw the province -- it has a proud history fighting against
the Dutch -- turned into a daerah operasi militer or military operations area.
The move saw the despatch of troops from Abri, the Indonesian Armed Forces, to
the area. Many Acehnese fled to neighbouring countries, in particular to
Malaysia.
But in the reform era that has followed the fall of President Suharto, Abri
has taken on a different face, as seen in investigations on former Kopassus
(special forces) senior officers, most noticeably, Lt-Gen Prabowo Subianto,
the son-in-law of Mr Suharto, in connection with missing students.
Last Friday, in a move that captured headlines in Jakarta, Abri chief General
Wiranto flew to Aceh and apologised to the Acehnese people for abuses that may
have been perpetrated by elements of the military.
Gen Wiranto then revoked the status of Aceh as a military area, ordered troops
to be pulled back to Jakarta within a month and pledged possible amnesty for
political prisoners linked to Free Aceh.
"On this day, as commander of Abri and with the blessings of the President, I
declare that the security of Aceh will be fully returned to the people of
Aceh," Gen Wiranto announced to thunderous applause by the locals.
Gen Wiranto's move on Aceh is important, especially in the context of the
current drive to bring to account all those who may have been implicated in
the abductions of the activists.
Sadly, despite the scale of the atrocities in Aceh, international media
attention on the Aceh question has been lacking.
Even as human rights groups now focus on missing students and other recent
atrocities, they should not forget the Acehnese tragedy.
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TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign
111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath,
Surrey CR7 8HW, UK
Phone: 0181 771-2904 Fax: 0181 653-0322
email: tapol@gn.apc.org
Campaigning to expose human rights violations in
Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua and Aceh
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