Banda Aceh – Indonesian security forces have killed three humanitarian workers and a torture victim they were escorting in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province, a rights activist said Thursday. The three were among four volunteers for the Rehabilitation Action for Torture Victims in Aceh (RATA) who were ambushed by a convoy of police and soldiers while travelling from the Tanah Pasir area of North Aceh on Wednesday, RATA chairman Nurdin Abdurrahman said
The group were returning to Lhokseumawe from Tanah Pasir, where they had picked up a torture victim for medical treatment, he said, quoting the fourth member of the group who escaped. "They were hauled to a Brimob [anti-riot police] truck and taken to Cot Matahe subdistrict," Abdurrahman said.
The three volunteers and the patient were later executed but the fourth managed to escape and reported the ordeal to the local Red Cross, he said. The bodies of the victims were collected by Red Cross volunteers and subsequently buried by their families in North Aceh. Aceh police spokesman Superintendent Yatim Suyatno said he had not received any report on the killings,
In August, a US-based Acehnese human rights campaigner, Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, who heads the New York-based International Forum for Aceh (IFA), went missing in the North Sumatra city of Medan. His body was found later outside the city.
The reported killing of the humanitarian workers came after Acehnese separatist rebels stepped up attacks on military and police installations there, leaving three people dead.
Police Private John Heriadi was shot dead on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire after suspected separatist guerillas hurled a grenade at a police post in Bireun district in northern Aceh, police spokesman Suyatno told AFP.
Another policeman was seriously injured in the fighting, Suyatmo said. A local commander of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Darwis Jeunib, said his group was responsible for the attack.
A grenade attack was also mounted on a military post in Pantenlabu, North Aceh, leaving a soldier wounded in the ensuing gunfight, police said.
On Wednesday rebels attacked a military post at Malikussaleh civilian airport in the industrial city of Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, wounding one soldier, Suyatmo said.
In a separate incident a policeman gunned down an unidentified man who tried to attack him with a machete in Jeumpa subdistrict. A ticket attendant at the bus station in East Aceh was shot dead by an unidentifed assailant on Tuesday night.
Two bodies, believed to be victims of violence, were also found in two places in Banda Aceh on Wednesday night, hospital staff said.
Supporters of the rebels in Aceh, an Islamic stronghold in Indonesia and the world's largest Muslim-populated nation, are embittered by nine years of harsh military operations against the GAM, and Jakarta's syphoning off of the region's abundant natural resources.
The GAM and Jakarta have agree to resume talks in Europe some time this month to seek a political settlement, but have yet to set a date.
Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid has flatly ruled out independence for the province but has instead promised broad autonomy by next year.
Wahid is due to visit Aceh on December 19 to inaugurate the implementation of Islamic Sharia law and hand over 10.5 million dollars in aid for the staunchly Muslim province.