APSN Banner

Aceh rebels threaten mass strike as police call for crack down

Source
Agence France Presse - November 14, 2000

Banda Aceh – Separatists in the Indonesian province of Aceh threatened Tuesday to launch a campaign of civil disobedience to win independence as police in Jakarta called for a free hand to crack down on the rebels.

A declaration in favour of the oil-rich, strongly Muslim province breaking away from Jakarta was approved by a meeting of leaders from across the province. It received a rapturous welcome at a huge pro-independence rally attended by an estimated 500,000 people at a state university campus here.

The rally came a day after rebel leaders in the province said they were pulling out of an upcoming scheduled peace talks with the government in protest at escalating violence by security forces.

The mass gathering, the third of its kind here since Friday, was informed of the leaders' declaration by activist Muhammad Nazar. "The Indonesian government is asked to return the sovereignty of Aceh to the Acehnese nation," he said to applause and yells of "freedom" from the crowd.

The declaration spelled out four other demands: The withdrawal of all Indonesian security forces from the province: the acceptance by Jakarta of responsibility for military atrocities in the province; intervention and mediation by the UN and other foreign countries and; The revoking of the Netherlands' declaration of war against the kingdom of Aceh of March 26, 1873 (Separatists argue this declaration of war is proof of Aceh's sovereignty).

"If the five demands are not implemented by November 26, it is called on the Aceh nation to launch a peaceful mass strike starting from November 27 until December 3," the leaders' declaration said.

But in Jakarta national police spokesman Brigadier General Saleh Saaf told a press conference the police were fed up, and wanted a free hand to launch a crackdown on the rebels. Saaf accused the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) of abusing a truce signed between the government and the rebels in May to consolidate their strength and urged the government to review it.

"We called on the government to review the humanitarian pause because the GAM is using the period to attack security forces," Saaf said. "We are running out of patience. We have done our part to obey the humanitarian pause [the name given to the truce] but they continued to attack police and soldiers, even when they were praying," he said. Saaf said 75 soldiers, 108 policemen, and 660 civilians had been killed and hundreds others wounded in separatist violence since August 1998.

The police call came after a GAM statement earlier this week said it was pulling out of peace talks scheduled with Jakarta this month, and reflected fading hopes for a peaceful political settlement of the Aceh problem.

The crowd on the campus, who had arrived aboard open trucks, buses, motorcycles, cars, pedicabs and on foot since around 9am dispersed peacefully following Nazar's speech. Security personnel were noticeably absent from the streets of the provincial capital, and traffic to and from the rally site was directed by students in university jackets and SIRA members.

The rallies, which started Friday, mark the first anniversary of a similar gathering in Banda Aceh on November 8 last year which was attended by up to a million people.

There were no reports of incidents or violence in Banda Aceh, but police and residents reported at least one death elsewhere, bringing to 39 the number who have died since last Wednesday when people started heading to Banda Aceh for the protests.

The GAM, which will celebrate its 24th anniversary on December 4, has been fighting for an independent, Islamic state since 1976. Jakarta, still smarting over the loss of East Timor in a UN-supervised ballot last year, has ruled out independence for Aceh and promised broad autonomy instead.

Country