Matthew Moore, Lhokseumawe – In Indonesia's new war against Aceh's rebels, 12 is now old enough to get shot in the back as you run for your life through a rice paddy.
That was how Anas bin Nazir and his friend Bedi bin Daud died on Wednesday morning, the youngest in a group of 14 young men and boys shot dead by the army. Witnesses, including the boy's parents, spoke to reporters over two days and say all the victims were massacred.
Army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Yani Basuki said all those killed were rebels attacking the Indonesian army, although he admitted that no weapons were found with any of those killed.
The evidence on the ground points to a very different story. With three friends, Anas and Bedi were sleeping in their little hut on the edge of Cot Rabo village, perched above the fish farm they guarded at night. Indonesian soldiers arrived before dawn in the village, about 10 kilometres east of Bireuen, an area known as a stronghold of the separatist army called GAM.
More than 30 villagers say they were beaten by soldiers using sticks and guns. Many of the villagers showed the welts to prove it. A woman called Murni Abdullah said a soldier pointed a gun at her and stole money worth $A60. Another soldier sprayed a house with bullets, while others walked along the path that runs between the paddy field and the fish ponds.
From where their bodies were found, just metres from their hut, these soldiers were early enough to catch the boys in their beds. Witnesses say the soldiers told them where to run. But you can't run through the thick mud of a rice paddy, and Anas and Bedi got no further than 10 metres before they died face down with their three friends.
An Indonesian journalist who went to village soon after the killings said soldiers gleefully directed him where to go. "Just say that we are Kopassus," one soldier said to him. "They said 'We already killed 10 rats over there'." (Kopassus is the army's notorious special forces group.)
Up the road a little, Tasran bin Dahlan, 17, was at home when soldiers arrived, shouting that they were looking for members of GAM, the Acehnese separatist fighters that Indonesia's military has vowed to "exterminate". His mother, Nurmiyah, said Tasran opened the door, went out and the soldiers grabbed him.
"I came out and they pointed a gun at me," she said. "I did not say anything. I was afraid." His father heard the noise, and came round from his fish farm at the back before his eldest son was led away. "Tasran just cried," he said. "He called out tolong [please], tolong, tolong. What could I do? They had guns." The soldiers took him up the road to shoot him, then brought his body back, in keeping with the policy of returning to their families people killed.
His parents were preparing his body for burial when soldiers arrived in the village of Cot Bate, several kilometres away, across the rice paddies. The 200 villagers there had heard the morning shooting and knew soldiers would come. They waited together in the simple white building that serves as their local hall.
As scores of marines patrolled the area yesterday, several witnesses told how scores of soldiers arrived on foot, the tracks to the village too small for anything bigger than a motorbike.
Villagers in the hall were divided into groups of about 15 and a list was produced. It had six names on it. The village head was then forced to identify the named men. One by one five men were taken outside and beaten with sticks while those inside listened to them scream.
The sixth man, Zaifudin, was too scared to go the hall, and hid in his house. When he tried to flee, the soldiers must have known what was coming. "It's normal here that if someone is running away they think that means he's a separatist," he said. He was the first to die, shot in the rice paddy. The villagers waited while the other five men, all in their 20s, were led away. The first was shot about 100 metres down the road, the others taken a little further on before they too were executed.
There were no witnesses other than soldiers, although a reporter who saw their bodies said three were shot in the head and several had chest wounds suggesting they had been shot at close range.
Asked if they were GAM members, one man in the village who knew them well said: "They were GAM sympathisers. I don't know if they were members." In his response to detailed written questions from The Age, Colonel Yani said soldiers had seen three well-known GAM spies while on patrol in the area at 5.30, guarding an empty house, and had questioned them.
He claimed the GAM soldiers began shooting, and one of the spies had run out of the house with a two-way radio. They shot him and nine others, including the two other spies, although he refused to name them. Soldiers then chased and killed seven more, he said. He said Dedi was 13, not 12, although The Age interviewed his 30-year-old mother.
In accordance with Islamic law, all the dead were buried before sunset on the day of their deaths, although not all of the parents could face the burials.
Dedi's mother, Asri, heard the shooting, and then heard from friends that her son was dead. "My husband I went there, and he was lying there in the mud," she said. "I could not stand it, and I collapsed and people took me to my house. I was not there when he was buried, I cannot stand to see him like that."
[Additonal reporting by Karuni Rompies.]