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Wahid criticizes security forces for Aceh bloodshed

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November 11, 2000 

BANDA ACEH, NOV 10 (AP) - President Abdurrahman Wahid Friday blamed the army and police for the escalating violence in Aceh province and the deaths of at least 19 civilians in the lead-up to a massive separatist rally.

"Acehnese people are my religious brothers," Wahid said after attending religious services in Madura, an island off the northern coast of East Java.

Wahid said he would summon military chief Adm. Widodo Adisutjipto, Army Commander Gen. Endriarto Sutarto and national Police Chief Gen. Bimantoro.

"I want to ask (them), 'since when guns are used in negotiations?"' Wahid said as quoted by the Tempo news service. "If you are using guns, then please retire."

Wahid's unprecedented criticism of the security forces came a day before a rally in the capital of the province, about 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) northwest of Jakarta, organized to mark the anniversary of a popular demand a U.N.-supervised independence referendum.

Clashes between pro-independence residents and security forces ahead of Saturday's gathering have claimed six more lives, human rights activist and officials said Friday.

Three civilians were shot dead by the security forces on Thursday in the east of the province, about 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) northwest of Jakarta, human rights worker Mohammed Yusuf Puteh said.

Local police chief Lt. Col. Arief Sumarman said two rebels were shot and arrested in west Aceh on Thursday by a security patrol. They died later in hospital. Local residents said the two were civilians.

On Friday, a dead body was found on the banks of a river in the center of the provincial capital Banda Aceh, said Aidarus, a doctor at a local hospital.

The deaths brings to 19 the number of people killed during the past three days as an estimated 100,000 Acehnese have already poured into Banda Aceh.

Tense standoffs have been reported at police checkpoints on all roads leading to the heavily guarded city.

Rally organizers are demanding a plebiscite for the region of 4.1 million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Indonesia's government announced on Thursday that it planned to meet with the rebel group, the Free Aceh Movement, in Switzerland next week to try to stem a recent escalation in bloodshed.

On June 2, government and rebel representatives signed an unprecedented truce accord in Geneva.

They have since met several times to prolong the cease-fire. But fighting in the province has continued leaving about 221 people dead since then.

The separatists - who claim wide public support - have been fighting for independence for their oil- and gas-rich homeland since 1975. At least 5,500 people have been killed there in the past decade.

In Jakarta, hundreds of Acehnese demonstrated peacefully outside the Dutch Embassy calling on the international community to support independence for Aceh.

The Netherlands ruled Indonesia for several centuries before Indonesia gained its independence in 1949.