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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Globalization : Government Secrecy : International Relations : Protest Activity |
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GAM Rebels Express Thanks for Aid |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ian Fisher
(No verified email address) |
17 Jan 2005
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"I am very grateful and thank the Americans and the rest of the world that when they saw this disaster they worked directly to help," he said, guarded by more than a dozen other armed men, some with grenades pinned to their shirts, on a small clearing that separated a grove of woods and acres of rice paddies.
The real threat, he said, was the announced intention of the Indonesian government to scale back on foreign help in the coming months.
"The Indonesian government just wants people out of Aceh as soon as possible so they can reassert control," he said. Aceh is rich in minerals and natural gas, and one of the grievances at the root of the separatist struggle has been that the province does not receive a fair share of revenues from the central government. |
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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Fighters of the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, in a clandestine area in the hills above Banda Aceh, Indonesia Sunday afternoon. Their spokesman said that they welcome foreigners in the Aceh province despite government warnings about rebel activity. They claim the government will steal money intended for tsunami aid once foreigners leave the area.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan. 16 - The rebel, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a cellphone and an old Kalashnikov, had a message for the scores of foreigners who have come here to help after the tsunami: You are welcome, and we will not hurt you.
"What GAM wants is for the international community to stay and help and see for themselves what is happening," the rebel, Mucksalmina, told a reporter on Sunday, using the common acronym for the Free Aceh Movement, the separatist army that has been fighting the Indonesian government for most of the past 30 years.
It is rare for foreigners to speak with the rebels - Aceh Province has been closed to outsiders for almost two years - but the political aftermath of the tsunami in Indonesia has given them something to say. In doing so, it has also shifted the political dynamic in this war zone, leading secretive rebels under siege by the Indonesian military to welcome the security that foreign scrutiny can provide, while the government in Jakarta remains wary about any prolonged foreign presence.
Agreeing to meet at a secluded clearing, just outside this city and near the jungle where the group hides, Mucksalmina, a rebel spokesman, wanted to counter what he suggested was fear-mongering by the Indonesian government: that foreign aid workers could be killed or kidnapped by the rebels.
The group has been accused of kidnapping civilians in the past, and the safety of aid workers has hung as one question mark over the huge relief operation here, along with the worry that fighting between the rebels and the government could hamper the delivery of aid supplies, especially to remote areas of Aceh. Last week, the government cited the possibility of rebel attacks as a reason for new travel restrictions for foreigners outside the two main cities, Banda Aceh and Meulaboh to the south.
"If someone is shot from a United Nations agency, the whole United Nations agency will withdraw," Alwi Shihab, Indonesia's chief welfare minister, told reporters here last week, according to Reuters. "Who will be responsible if a foreigner is kidnapped? The responsible party is us."
But Mucksalmina said that foreigners had nothing to fear from them and that the group's top leadership had issued orders not to harm any aid workers. He said the group was thankful for the help to Aceh from foreigners, including Americans, whose military helicopters full of aid supplies buzz nonstop to the areas most affected.
"I am very grateful and thank the Americans and the rest of the world that when they saw this disaster they worked directly to help," he said, guarded by more than a dozen other armed men, some with grenades pinned to their shirts, on a small clearing that separated a grove of woods and acres of rice paddies.
The real threat, he said, was the announced intention of the Indonesian government to scale back on foreign help in the coming months.
"The Indonesian government just wants people out of Aceh as soon as possible so they can reassert control," he said. Aceh is rich in minerals and natural gas, and one of the grievances at the root of the separatist struggle has been that the province does not receive a fair share of revenues from the central government. Adding to that complaint in recent years has been the treatment meted out to the rebels by the Indonesian Army.
Human rights groups and foreign officials have accused the government of human rights abuses since the war reignited in May 2003, and of carrying out such violations behind a curtain of secrecy thrown up by the barring of foreigners from Aceh. When martial law was imposed, also in May 2003, some 40,000 Indonesian soldiers and police officers were sent to fight about 5,000 rebels, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, and since then the army has badly weakened the rebels.
The rebels, too, have been accused of abuses, particularly of kidnapping civilians and holding them hostage. In May 2004, according to Human Rights Watch, some 150 civilians were released in a deal brokered by the International Committee for the Red Cross and the Indonesian Red Cross. Human Rights Watch said it was unclear whether the rebels were holding any other civilians.
The presence of an active armed conflict in the area most affected by the tsunami has proved to be a complication as aid groups and the government here plan the huge task of providing relief and rebuilding the devastated coast of Aceh.
Another major concern is the construction of camps for some of the nearly 400,000 people left homeless by the tsunami - whether the government here will use the camps as a way to control people in areas with rebel activity and whether the rebels will use the camps as a place to organize and supply themselves.
Aid officials say privately it is too early to tell whether either worry is true, but there does seem some evidence that rebels are, at least, visiting some camps.
At one camp to the southwest of this city, a local leader - too afraid of both the rebels and the army to give his name - said rebels had come into the camp on several nights. The man said that the visits seemed to take place largely to see relatives and to chat with sympathizers, rather than to organize or take aid supplies, but that the visits could open the camps to reprisals by the army.
"We told them please to stay away from here because they might hurt their families and endanger everyone around here," he said.
He said a local military commander found out about the visits and threatened to reduce aid supplies if they continued.
Mucksalmina, the rebel spokesman, said his group was avoiding the camps and said they would not use food aid meant for refugees to feed themselves. He also said the rebels were giving their own stores of supplies to victims.
He denied reports that large numbers of rebels had died in the tsunami. He said the rebels had lost about 70 male fighters and 48 women active in the group.
He also seemed skeptical that the tsunami might deliver the blessing of peace, that all the suffering and destruction might make the government and rebels sit down and reach a peace agreement. On Friday, the Indonesian vice president, Jusuf Kalla, said that the government had contacted the rebels and that he wanted to "solve this problem thoroughly." An exiled rebel leader also expressed a willingness to talk.
But Mucksalmina said that on the ground it was "the same as always."
"Right now, what we want to do is help people," he said. "But the Indonesian Army is trying to do their operations, very tightly, so it has been almost impossible for us to help our people."
He said that the rebels were observing their own cease-fire as long as the relief effort was operating and added that they would not attack government troops. "We won't use guns to take advantage of the situation," he said. But he added, "If the army fires on us, we will fire back."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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U.S. and Indonesia May Restore Military Link |
by Eric Schmitt
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
17 Jan 2005
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JAKARTA, Indonesia, Jan. 16 - The United States and Indonesia are seeking to use their cooperation in dealing with the tsunami crisis as a springboard to restore closer military ties after a decade of limited contact because of American concern over human rights abuses by the Indonesian Army, senior defense officials from both countries said Sunday.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, visiting here on a trip to three countries hit hard by the tsunami last month, said Congressional restrictions on American training and arms sales should be re-evaluated in light of what the Indonesian military is doing to refashion itself into a more professional and accountable force.
"If we're interested in military reform here," Mr. Wolfowitz told reporters, "I think we need to reconsider a bit where we are."
Earlier in the day, Mr. Wolfowitz, who was the American ambassador here from 1986 to 1989, in the Reagan administration, said, "Cutting off contact with Indonesian officers only makes the problem worse."
Military assistance to Indonesia was halted in 1992 in response to the killing of demonstrators in East Timor by Indonesian forces. After the Sept. 11 attacks, some counterterrorism training for Indonesian forces resumed. Last week, restrictions were relaxed to allow the sale of spare parts for Indonesia's aging fleet of C-130 military cargo planes so they could be used to deliver aid. Only 8 of Indonesia's 25 C-130's were in condition to be used, American officials said.
Any further changes would require congressional approval.
Even proponents of the restrictions - including those who have been critical of the army for its continuing rights abuses in places like Aceh Province, the site of worst devastation from the tsunami - acknowledge that the best hope for developing an army whose conduct fits a democracy is to send officers for training in the United States.
Mr. Wolfowitz pointed out on Sunday that the new Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is a former general who trained at the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
He has made clear that in restoring assistance, the United States would not excuse past abuses and would press the Indonesian military to make changes to prevent such abuses. Any renewed assistance would have to be closely monitored, proponents of changes said.
Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the Pacific Command, said in an interview that the Indonesian military had already taken several steps - from no longer allowing officers to hold seats in Parliament, to centralizing control over special forces - and said he favored restoring full military ties.
Admiral Fargo is seeking Pentagon approval to expand a series of conferences his command has sponsored with Indonesian military officers on civil-military relations, democratic institutions and other nonlethal training, a spokesman said.
The Indonesian defense minister, Juwono Sudarsono, said Sunday at a news conference with Mr. Wolfowitz that he was trying to make needed changes in the 350,000-member military despite a limited budget.
Mr. Sudarsono sought to remove one possible irritant in relations between the United States and Indonesia by pulling back from his government's announcement last week that foreign militaries assisting the relief operations would have to leave by March 26, the three-month anniversary of the tsunami.
The comments had roiled some in Congress, who had viewed the remarks as an ungrateful reply to a surge of emergency American relief aid, particularly from Navy helicopters flying into remote coastal areas from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and other ships off the western coast of Sumatra.
Mr. Sudarsono said Sunday that March 26 was not a deadline for foreign militaries, but rather the date by which the Indonesian government would try to improve and accelerate its ability to oversee all relief efforts. "Foreign military operations providing relief and rehabilitation will be allowed to continue, albeit on a reduced scale," he said.
Here in Indonesia, Mr. Sudarsono said it was difficult to bolster the military's public image, especially in places like Aceh Province, which had the greatest number of deaths from the tsunami and where a separatist rebellion has simmered for decades. He said he had placed a full-page advertisement in Indonesian newspapers to thank the military for its efforts in helping tsunami victims.
He also appealed to Washington to provide more training for officers, particularly in management and on the technical aspects of defense, and Mr. Wolfowitz responded that such training made sense for a military in a democracy.
Officials from both the United States and Indonesia said that the Indonesian military's handling of the crisis in Aceh could influence members of Congress on the issue of restrictions. But perhaps more important, it might also open the door to a settlement of the long-simmering strife there, American officials said.
"If the military proves itself in Aceh, and shows they can do something other than kill people there, it could bring about a settlement," said one American military official who had studied the tensions there but who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have an official policy making position.
Before the tsunami, Aceh was mostly off limits to foreigners, including aid workers. Martial law was declared in the province in May 2003 and relaxed to a state of "civil emergency" last year, as some 40,000 troops weakened the rebels.
Human rights groups have accused the Indonesian military of severe abuses of civilians.
Mr. Wolfowitz will wrap up his inspection of the tsunami-stricken region with a visit to Sri Lanka on Monday to review the damage there as well as American military relief operations. He visited Thailand earlier in the weekend.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company |
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