DATE=4/23/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDONESIA ACEH L ONLY
NUMBER=2-261635
BYLINE=PATRICIA NUNAN
DATELINE=JAKARTA
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The security situation in Aceh remains tense
days after the opening of a landmark human rights case
in the Indonesian province. Armed gunmen have
attacked two police posts (late Saturday) but with no
apparent injuries. As Patricia Nunan reports from
Jakarta, police suspect the attackers are members of
Aceh's guerrilla separatist movement.
TEXT: Police officials in the town of Seulimeum, 50
kilometers east of the provincial capital, say they
returned fire against a group of unidentified gunmen
when their precinct office came under attack late
Saturday. The gunmen quickly fled into the darkness.
The gun battle followed a grenade attack in northern
Aceh earlier in the day. At least one grenade was
thrown into the empty kitchen of a police post. No
officials were injured.
Police say rebels from the "Free Aceh Movement" are
responsible for the grenade attack. The rebel group
has not commented.
The "Free Aceh Movement" declared Aceh independent in
1976 and has fought for recognition ever since. But
the rebels stepped up their efforts against Indonesian
security forces last year, after the government
granted independence to East Timor after two decades
of fighting an independence movement there.
Aceh is under special scrutiny this week with the
opening Wednesday of a landmark human rights case. 24
soldiers and one civilian are accused of massacring at
least 58 people at an Islamic boarding school in West
Aceh last July. State prosecutors accuse the
defendants of committing "premeditated murder."
The military maintains that the people were killed in
a gun battle with guerrilla rebels. They want the
case thrown out because they say the soldiers were
merely following orders from their superiors.
It is the first of five human rights cases to be tried
in Aceh involving abuses by Indonesian troops. Many
see the trial as a test of Indonesian President
Abdurrahman Wahid -- who has promised to both end
Aceh's separatist fighting and to curb the powers of
the Indonesian military.
/// REST OPT ///
Human rights groups say at least 200 people have died
at the hands of Indonesian security forces in Aceh
since February. That is when the government launched
an operation to crush the "Free Aceh Movement." Those
alleged deaths come on top of the at least two-
thousand people human rights groups say died or
disappeared as a result of the military's counter-
insurgency operations undertaken since 1989. (SIGNED)
NEB/MP/JO
23-Apr-2000 08:47 AM EDT (23-Apr-2000 1247 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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