Dan Eaton, Jakarta – Indonesia's military is waging an extensive campaign of extra-judicial killings, kidnapping and torture in Aceh province, mostly targeting young men and forcing thousands to flee their homes, a human rights group said.
Authorities are trying to cover up the situation in the war-torn northern province by restricting access by journalists, rights workers and aid groups, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Wednesday.
"We fear that the abuses we have uncovered against the civilian population may be just the tip of the iceberg," said Brad Adams, executive director of the group's Asia division in a statement accompanying the report.
The report entitled "Aceh Under Martial Law: Inside the Secret War" prompted an angry response from the government, which put the province under martial law in May this year and launched its biggest military operation in years to crush the rebels.
"It is typical in being so ill-informed and one-sided in its nature and is obviously to us grossly misleading in its depiction of the situation in Aceh," Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa told Reuters.
"It uses the term 'secret war' as the title. There is no war in Aceh, there is nothing secret in Aceh, what is going on in Aceh is a matter of public knowledge, publicly declared martial law in Aceh," he said.
The 50-page report, based on testimony from Acehnese refugees in Malaysia, says it "documents the role of the Indonesian security forces in extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, beatings, arbitrary arrests and detentions".
"Human Rights Watch is concerned that many Indonesian military personnel seem to presume that all young men in Aceh are GAM fighters, and are targeting civilians indiscriminately," the rights group said, referring to the separatist rebels.
"Human Rights Watch is concerned about deteriorating material and economic conditions that could presage, or even reflect, a humanitarian crisis," the rights group said.
Indonesia extended martial law in Aceh, a province of four million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island, after an initial six-month period expired in November in a bid to wipe out the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels.
Decades of strife
Indonesia warned against foreign meddling on November 7 after the United States, Europe and Japan expressed concern over the extension of martial law.
While agreeing with the government that Aceh is an integral part of Indonesia, the three powers have tried to encourage a political solution since last year, promising aid as an incentive. They sponsored talks between the government and GAM in Tokyo, which collapsed in May.
The Aceh offensive pits about 45,000 military and police against an estimated 5,000 rebels. GAM has been fighting for 27 years, surviving numerous offensives. Before the latest offensive, about 10,000 people, most of them civilians, had been killed.
The military says it has killed or captured nearly 2,000 rebels in the new offensive but casualty figures are difficult to verify because of restricted access to the province.
The government spokesman said authorities were working to ease restrictions. "Of course we are all very much mindful of the concerns expressed about access there. It is something we are now trying to rectify, trying to improve," Natalegawa said.
"But in the report there is a total lack of acknowledgement about the atrocities committed by GAM." Human Rights Watch said it was concerned about abuses committed by GAM, but was unable to report on them because it had no access to Aceh.
"Every Acehnese we interviewed had a story of abuse to tell," said Adams. The report includes material from about 85 interviews conducted in Malaysia.