Chris McCall, Jakarta – Rebel leaders in war-torn Aceh yesterday denounced plans by Jakarta to mount a new military operation there and said it would lead to a bloodbath on an appalling scale.
In a telephone interview from a secret rebel base, commander Abu Sofyan Daud predicted the war that would follow would be long and make past violence in Aceh pale into insignificance.
"Hundreds of thousands of Acehnese people are going to die," said Mr Sofyan, commander of the rebel Free Aceh Movement in the Pasee region, near the industrial city of Lhokseumawe.
A series of top Indonesian officials, including influential chief security minister and former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said on Tuesday that Jakarta was about to undertake a limited military operation in its troubled western province. Military hardliners have been champing at the bit for action for more than a year, but have been held in check by President Abdurrahman Wahid. Now facing impeachment, Mr Wahid's influence is growing weaker by the day.
The announcement followed a series of shutdowns by economically strategic firms based in Lhokseumawe, in particular Mobil Oil Indonesia Inc, a subsidiary of US-based Exxon Mobil. Late last week it decided to close down its onshore operations in Aceh, citing a worsening security situation.
Indonesia's oil and gas revenue is a vital part of its cash-strapped state budget and Aceh is one the main producing provinces, most of it coming from the Arun field in the sea off Lhokseumawe. The rebels, also known by the acronym GAM, had "asked" these firms to stop production, citing concerns for their own security.
Resentment that Jakarta has siphoned off Aceh's natural resources and given little back has helped fuel the long-running separatist war. For nine years from 1989 to 1998 Aceh held the status of a "military operations area", known by the Indonesian acronym DOM. This has become a synonym in Aceh for a period marked by widespread human rights abuses, the full extent of which only became apparent when DOM was cancelled in August 1998, a few months after the fall of former president Suharto.
Mr Sofyan said that this new declaration would be tantamount to DOM II, rejecting government denials that it represented a return to the past. He said it would be worse and Indonesian police and military would target innocent civilians if they could not get GAM.
"We from GAM do not want war but we demand independence through diplomacy. But if they attack us we are going to fight them," he said. "If this really happens to make an emergency in Aceh, indeed security in Aceh cannot be guaranteed. We will still defend ourselves and oppose them. If they do this it will be a larger war."
GAM was well-equipped to resist the Indonesian military, he added, with 10,000 "elite" forces. And, he said, 70 per cent of Acehnese men were willing to become laskar, or fighting forces. If that figure were true it could mean more than one million people. Aceh has a population of around four million. Indonesian officials dispute the rebel figures and say their forces are much smaller.