Chris McCall and Agencies – Activists in Aceh yesterday urged Jakarta to set up a full human rights inquiry into abuses in the province if it wants a de facto ceasefire with separatist rebels to work.
The message came as Indonesian police said they had killed nine suspected separatists in the worst violence in the troubled province since the signing of a three-month "humanitarian pause" last week. Police said eight of the nine were killed in a firefight but residents said they had been shot in cold blood while sitting in a cafe. The incident came hours after a court jailed 24 soldiers for a massacre of civilians last year.
There were hopes the de facto ceasefire, set to start on June 2, could lead to a lasting peace, but anger over abuses by Indonesia's military has to be assuaged.
Activists said the mixed civilian and military court which jailed the 24 soldiers was not a model which would be readily accepted again.
The trial left unpunished those who ordered the massacre of Islamic teacher Teungku Bantaqiah and 56 of his followers. Human rights groups condemned it, even though the sentences were some of the harshest Indonesia has given its soldiers for rights abuses.
Public reaction in Aceh was virtually nil. "No one cares," said Saifuddin Bantasyam, executive director of Care Human Rights Forum in the capital, Banda Aceh. "They already knew the result of the trial. This trial could not bring justice to the people. We need a body to investigate all human rights abuses in Aceh."
A series of such inquiries have recently begun work looking at a range of unsolved business from the past, most notably last year's East Timor violence. But, noting a lack of similar inquiries in Aceh, rights activists suggest it may be just too delicate a subject to handle. Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri arrived in Merauke, Papua, yesterday at the start of a five-day visit to the easternmost province which her office called a fact-finding mission concerning Papuans' demands for independence. Papua was formerly called Irian Jaya.