Jakarta – Leaked military documents obtained by Indonesia's leading independent human rights group Wednesday showed civil rights abuses over the past nine years in Aceh province were carried out on the instructions of the army in Jakarta.
Coordinator of the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, Munir, showed AFP on Wednesday 400 pages of documents, one of them bore an insignia of a powerful unit in the army.
Munir said the documents would reveal military atrocities were "under the knowledge of the headquarters in Jakarta" and the activities "were reported back to Jakarta with some of the military officers being rewarded with rank promotions."
One report showed a district commander in Pidie disctrict who was recommended for a rank above the usual promotion after he reported he had "successfully killed" three alleged separatist Free Aceh Movementmembers, a woman and her two children. The document described the officer's promotion as a "benefit" for killing the suspected rebels.
"There are three sets of documents," Munir said. "First are documents of what the military called the mapping of the enemy force," he said, adding this apparently referred to the GAM.
"Second is the Red Net Operation which dated from 1994-1998 ... and the third set are documents of incident reports and dossiers of resident interrogations by military personnel," the lawyer said.
He also acknowledged "some of the documents" have been submitted to Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, who is also chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights.
All three sets of documents showed the military's operational pattern, structure of command and links between violence in the field and the central headquarters in Jakarta, Munir said.
He added the evidence "could also reveal that violence in the field were not merely accidents but were rather a part of an operational command."
Munir said the documents would be able to counteract statements by six top Indonesian army officers, who denied during a parliamentary hearing any involvement by the military top brass. The generals claimed abuses were the work of individual "undisciplined" soldiers.
Three former armed forces chiefs – Benny Murdani, Feisal Tanjung and Try Sutrisno – as well as former home affairs minister Lieutenant General Syarwan Hamid appeared before parliament's Special Commission on Aceh on November 29.
"What is clear is that there is no policy to kill, rape etc," said Try Sutrisno, who was military chief when the decade-long anti-rebel operation was launched in Aceh in 1989 by former president Suharto. At least 2,000 people have been killed in the campaign.
The hearing was also attended by former Sumatra military commander Major General Pramono, former intelligence chief Major General Zacky Anwar Makarim and former Aceh governor Ibrahim Hasan.
"These documents are vital because they could explain several issues which have been missing to open cases in Aceh and they are also important as a means to re-trace matters unreachable by previous investigating teams," Munir said.
Indonesia's parliament on Wednesday called for a tribunal to try military officers suspected of human rights violations in Aceh and warned the country was facing a "crisis" over growing separatism.
Parliament leaders summoned President Abdurrahman Wahid to voice their concerns over mounting separatist demands in the province and the easternmost province of Irian Jaya, as well as over the ongoing Christian-Muslim clashes in the Maluku islands.
"We urge the government to immediately process the implementation of a human rights tribunal ... based on data collected by human rights commission and the independent commission on Aceh," parliament Speaker Akbar Tanjung said at the hearing.