From: AcehForum@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 11:36 AM
To: AcehForum@aol.com
Cc:
Subject: Indonesian Army and Special Police killed 7 timber workers in Aceh
Waspada (extracts) with additional notes from a local contact.
7 Killed and 7 Missing (8/17/1999).
10 August 1999
Four timber workers were killed, four were injured and seven disappered when army and police troops attacked an encampment in Krueng Tuan, Nisam sub-district, in North Aceh, 58 kms south-west of Lhokseumawe.
The attack occurred at 5am on 7 August as the men were still sleeping.
One man injured in the attack, Anwar Abdullah, told Waspada at the clinic where he was being treated for leg injuries:
'We were still asleep when we suddenly heard gunfire.' He said they thought at first that they were being attacked by Free Aceh Movement (GAM) fighters, but it soon became clear that the attackers were members of the Indonesian army and police.
Abdullah said that he was hit in the foot in the first spray of bullets. He jumped down into a ravine but was shot again as he fell.
Two men in the camp where he was injured were killed in the attack, and two others were killed in a nearby camp in the hail of bullets.
The tragedy was discovered three hours later when villagers from nearby came searching for timber and found the injured and other survivors in the ravine.
Abdullah said the people carried him for two kms to take him to a clinic for treatment.
Five of the seven men who disappeared following the attack have been identified by name but the other two have not been identified.
The local military commander LtCol. Suyatno confirmed the attack but said that only two men had been killed. He claimed that the men said to have disappeared had now returned home. Suyatno said that the attack was not launched by men under his command but by another unit which he could not identify.
According to Waspada, local inhabitants said that dozens of soldiers dressed in camouflage arrived at the scene of the tragedy in military trucks. Although the attacking force has not been identified, the local people were sure that they were members of the Indonesian army.
But according to our local contact, the attack on the timber workers was launched by forces of the special troops, the PPRM, which is composed of soldiers and police. They were carrying out a search operation in the forest when they cam upon the encampment of timber workers. They were attacked with grenades as well as gunfire. Four men were killed on the spot while others managed to escape, and were chased by the soldiers.
The nearby villagers who came upon the scene of death found men hiding in the forest who told them what had happened.
The four dead had been buried by the troops in very shallow graves so it was not difficult to find the bodies. The bodies was so severely mutilated because of the grenade attack that it was not possible to carry them away and they were given a proper burial near where the crime had taken place.
The fact that grenades had been used was obvious from the deep crater where the incident had occurred.
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TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign
111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath,
Surrey CR7 8HW, UK
Phone: 0181 771-2904 Fax: 0181 653-0322
email: tapol@gn.apc.org
Internet: www.gn.apc.org/tapol
Campaigning to expose human rights violations in
Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua and Aceh
25 years - and still going strong
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Forwarded by IFA - International Forum for Aceh - exposing human-rights abuse in Aceh.
Since 1990, Thousands of Acehnese were killed and hundreds of women have been raped by the military forces. Since January 1999, where military operation supposedly over, more than 300 civilians have been killed in Aceh. Recently, July 23, 1999 over 71 were massacred in Western Aceh and 30 more are unaccounted for. Currently there are over 140000 Acehnese has become refugees in their homeland. The killing, executing and torturing civilians in Aceh by Indonesian Special Police and Military Forces must be stopped. Aceh is located on nothern tip of Sumatra Island. It borders Indian Ocean and Strait of Malaka and Southeast Asian Nations.
