Peace agreements come and go but on the ground nothing ever changes in Aceh. The death toll has continued to rise, even following a mid-January accord for a one-month moratorium on violence. Volunteers working for a group to assist victims of torture were murdered in cold blood, in a deliberate move to curb the activities of human rights defenders.
On average these days, there are at least three killings a day in Aceh, but it was the murder in cold blood of three volunteers working for RATA (Rehabilitation Action for Torture Victims in Aceh) that deeply shocked public opinion and resulted in a condemnation by the European Union and the UN.
RATA was inaugurated in Banda Aceh in September 1998 by the governor of Aceh and the Danish ambassador, and is led by a former political prisoner, Drs Nurdin Abdulrahman. It is sponsored and largely financed by the Danish Government and is a member of the Copenhagen-based International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. Its volunteers work away from the spotlight, sending teams to provide counselling to victims and escorting victims to hospital when medical treatment is required.
As this cold-blooded murder shows, the Indonesian security forces regard the work of humanitarian workers and human rights defenders as dangerous because they are witnesses to what is happening on the ground.
A well-planned attack The team that set out from Lhokseumawe in a vehicle clearly marked with the RATA insignia on 6 December to take patients in Tanah Pasir, North Aceh to a local medical centre consisted of three men and a woman, Idris bin Yusuf (27), Bachtiar bin Usman Daud (23), Nazaruddin bin Abdul Gani (22) and Ernita binti Wahab (23). The sole survivor, Nazaruddin, was able to tell the world what happened to his colleagues. He gave his testimony four days later, after going into hiding.
Soon after the RATA team had escorted some patients to a medical centre in North Aceh, their vehicle was halted by three cars. A well-known cuak – army informer – named Ampson Thayeb who seemed to be in charge, ordered the volunteers out of their car. All the men in the three cars were heavily armed; some were cuak and the others were almost certainly soldiers not in uniform. The volunteers were questioned at gunpoint and stripped of their wallets and ID cards. They were asked about their RATA activities and accused of being pro-GAM, because they were operating in a GAM area.
Nazaruddin and Bachtiar were ordered into one car, while Ernita and Idris were forced into the other cars. When the convoy stopped again, the volunteers were ordered out, told to take off their shoes and beaten. When they fell to the ground, shots were fired close to their feet. One of the abductors who was apparently a soldier was filming everything with a video camera.
A family in a house nearby who had watched the team being maltreated was ordered into one of the cars. The convoy then drove off again, and stopped several times at local koramil (military command posts) to chat with the soldiers. When Thayeb asked an officer, "Should we finish them off here?" he was told to go and do it somewhere else.
The convoy then approached a village where a bomb had just exploded; plenty of people were still milling around. The men in the convoy opened fire. As the people scattered, the kidnappers seized a man named Rusli and order him into one of the cars. The convoy drove off again and later stopped in front of a school in Kandang. The volunteers together with Rusli were ordered out and told to "confess if you want to survive". Their hands were bound behind their backs. As one of the men thrust a gun into Ernita's mouth, she pleaded with them not to kill her. After driving off again, they were ordered out. Ernita and Idris were stood in front of a house. As the camera continue to whirr, the two were kicked to the ground and shot dead in the head, each with a single bullet.
Meanwhile Nazaruddin had managed to loosen the cord binding his hands and tried to do the same for Bachtiar. But as the men turned on them, he fled, escaping a volley of shots as he plunged through a nearby field, dressed only in his underpants. As he fled, he heard another two shots which killed Bachtiar and Rusli. Later that evening, he was taken in by a family in a village.
The following day, the bullet-riddled bodies of Ernita, Idris, Bachtiar and Rusli were discovered near an empty house in Alue Liem, Bland Mangat sub-district, North Aceh by the Red Cross and taken away for identification and burial. Following the atrocity, RATA teams stopped their activities for two weeks but then resumed their work, except the team in Lhokseumawe which now has no vehicle.
Koneksitas court could be convened
A month after the atrocity, the National Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, announced that it would set up a special investigation commission known as a KPP HAM, under the terms of the law on Ad Hoc Human Rights Courts enacted by Parliament in November 2000. This should lead to the establishment of an ad hoc human rights court which would deal with the atrocity as a crime against humanity. If this actually happens, it will set an important precedent in Indonesian legal history, as the first case heard under the Human Rights Court Law.
However, efforts are afoot to prevent this from happening. The details of the atrocity, which were made public within days by Nazaruddin, the sole survivor of the atrocity, also named some of the perpetrators, making it incumbent on the police in Aceh to make arrests and start investigating the case. Among those who are now under arrest are Ampon Thayib and three others, all civilians. Leading the investigations is Chief Commissioner of Police, Drs Manahan Daulay who told human rights activists that there were eight suspects. He refused to identify the other four apart from saying that they were from the security forces, "though not from the police". He said that the investigation team was a joint koneksitas team including military investigators which means that the suspects will be indicted before a koneksitas court.
This move has been roundly condemned by local human rights activists because such a court, in effect a military court, would not treat the atrocity as a crime against humanity and would deal only with the direct perpetrators, while those who ordered the kidnap and assassination operation would remain untouched.
In a joint statement, the head of RATA, Drs Nurdin AR, and Iqbal Farabi, head of the Komnas HAM office in Banda Aceh, said: "This case must not be taken to a koneksitas court. The RATA killing was clearly a crime against humanity, a grave, systematic and comprehensive crime, not just an incident. There are strong indications that this was a state-instigated crime with the deliberate aim of obstructing the work of humanitarian workers." Investigations must expose the more senior military officers who were in overall command of those who perpetrated the crime. "This can only be done in a human rights court," Iqbal said.
By moving fast to set up koneksitas procedures, no doubt acting under pressure from the military, the police clearly want to pre-empt Komnas HAM intentions. A koneksitas trial would make it impossible to set up a human rights court subsequently because the principle of double jeopardy would foreclose the chances of holding a re-trial.
The toll rises steadily
The RATA killings occurred in a month when, according to one of Aceh's leading human rights' monitors, the number of victims has continued to rise. Kontras-Aceh, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, announced in early January that they had been able to verify 184 cases of killings, disappearances, torture and arrests in December. They stressed that this was not the complete story by any means, only cases where they had been able identify the victims, the perpetrators and the locations. Their local monitors were frequently obstructed in their work by the authorities.
Their records included 88 deaths of which 35 were clearly the work of the security forces while 53 persons had been killed by unknown assailants. The killings were scattered right across Aceh. In North Aceh, there were 23 deaths, in Bireuen 21, in South Aceh 16 and in East Aceh 13. Altogether, according to Kontras-Aceh records, twenty people were still missing.
Kontras-Aceh coordinator, Aguswandi, told the press that it was imperative for the Indonesian authorities to reverse their present policy of violence; he insisted that they should accept responsibility for the escalating number of victims. (Serambi Aceh, 4 January 2001)
Petrus killings abound
One of striking features of the current spate of killings is that in many cases, corpses are left lying on the road. On one occasion in mid December, local people discovered five bodies lying side by side.
The director of Cordova, an NGO that focuses on social analysis and human rights, told a Jakarta daily: "Today, we see a new type of violence in the style of mysterious murders [petrus] such as those committed during the Suharto years which were [on that occasion] applied on suspected criminals. Suddenly now in Aceh we have bodies placed deliberately in public places." This made it difficult to believe the government when it says the violation of rights here can be stopped.
Interviewed by The Jakarta Post, Otto Syamsuddin Ishak said, "... since June, we've been seeing more petrus cases in which the victims are mostly civilians." Ishak is a member of the joint monitoring team for security modalities that works within the framework of the Joint Understanding for a Humanitarian Pause to monitor violations of the accord between the Indonesian government and the armed movement, GAM.
Asked which of the two sides were responsible for most of the violations, he said: "Maybe both parties are guilty of violating the Pause ... but both parties must be open to a transparent and comprehensive examination of rights violations." This could be undertaken, he said, by an international NGO like Amnesty International or by the UN. (Jakarta Post, 18 December 2000)