Banda Aceh – At least six people were killed in renewed violence in the Indonesian province of Aceh at the weekend, police and residents said.
A policeman was killed and three others were injured afer a truck carrying them was ambushed by separatist rebels on Saturday, North Aceh district police Adjunct Senior Commissioner Wanto Sumardi said.
The truck, which had left Lhokseumawe, the main district town of North Aceh, overturned after it passed over a landmine and was hit by a grenade, Sumardi said Sunday. The driver of the police truck was killed.
The local spokesman of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Abu Zarkata, told AFP his group carried out the attack. "We will continue to launch similar actions as long as they [the Indonesian security forces] remain arrogant on the field and continue to hurt the people by their field operations," Zarkata said.
A soldier was shot dead by two men in the North Aceh subdistrict of Dewantara on Friday, Sumardi said. The local GAM deputy commander, Sofyan Daud, denied the assailants were rebels and instead accused the military of having shot dead a civilian in Lhok Kuyuen, in North Aceh during a military operation Saturday.
Soldiers also shot dead a 13-year-old highschool student in East Aceh on Saturday, said Sulaiman, a human rights activist. Another civilian was wounded by gunshot and was being treated at the general hospital in Langsa, the main town in East Aceh, he added.
But East Aceh District Police Chief, Adjunct Senior Commissioner Abdullah Hayati, said the two were hit by stray bullets during an exchange of fire between GAM rebels and security personnel there. Sulaiman said there had been no exchange of fire.
A retired soldier was found dead in Nurussalam, also in East Aceh late on Friday, Hayati said, blaming the killing on the GAM.
In West Aceh, the body of a man with three bullet wounds and his hands and feet bound, was found on Saturday, a Red Cross volunteer who only identified himself as Rasmudin, said.
Jakarta on Thursday said President Abdurrahman Wahid had issued a decree ordering security forces to restore order in Aceh. The decree would allow troop reinforcements to be sent to the region, where GAM has waged a guerrilla war against Jakarta rule since the mid-1970s.
The government and the rebels have agreed on a series of truces in Aceh, but have so far failed to curtail the violence which has claimed some 400 people lives this year.