James Balowski, Jakarta
In a statement issued on February 23, Amnesty International said that the five human rights activists and one other person who were detained by the Indonesian police between February 19 and February 23 in Indonesia's northern-most province of Aceh are "at grave risk of torture and ill-treatment".
Amnesty reported that on February 19 the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) arrested a man named Masrizal on suspicion of being a member of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) guerrilla movement. Three days later, human rights worker Iwan Irama Putra, an acquaintance of Masrizal, was detained by Brimob and "has not been seen since".
On February 22, Brimob police made a series of raids on the homes of members of the Acehnese Democratic Women's Organisation (ORPAD), arresting three members of the human rights organisation — Harlina, Nova Rahayu and Nursida. Later that day, the police arrested another man named Syafruddin, an activist with the human rights organisation Student Solidarity for the People (SMUR).
Indonesian human rights and Aceh solidarity organisations have reacted angrily to the arrests.
At a press conference in Jakarta on February 24, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Aceh Papua Solidarity (SAP), the Mardhika Women's Working Group (KKPM) and ORPAD condemned the arrests.
The coordinator of Kontras' working body, Mufti Makarim, said the arrests are part of the present drive by the Indonesian authorities to stifle the political freedoms of the Acehnese people. "These actions clearly threaten civil freedoms, in particular those who have a critical position towards the government's policies", he said.
Dita Sari, representing the KKPM, said that the five activists were neither members or sympathisers of GAM, but were from the human rights organisations. "Their whereabouts are still unclear after police asserted that they had not detained any activists or students, whereas according to eyewitnesses, the six were taken by Brimob personnel from their homes in Banda Aceh", Sari said.
"They just staged rallies demanding that the government lift martial law. The women activists had said that martial law and the military operation had brought suffering to the people, especially women, and had not restored security and order in the resource-rich province", she added.
ORPAD chairperson Raihana Diani said that she believes the abductions are linked to a recent statement she made that was carried widely by the print media.
On February 19, the Jakarta daily Kompas carried a report titled "Military accused of flirting with political parties in Aceh" in which it quoted Diani as saying that on a number of occasions ORPAD members had witnessed Democratic Party card holders receiving preferential treatment during ID sweeps from by security forces. "This could become a form of coercion by the emergency military command to [get people to] vote for political parties which have the blessing of the military", she was quoted as saying.
In the same Kompas report, the spokesperson for Media Aceh Election Watch, Munarman, and Jusuf Lakaseng from SAP conveyed similar concerns. "The position of [coordinating minister for politics and security and Democratic Party presidential candidate] Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as the person who overseas the central emergency military command is being exploited by the Democratic Party for their own interests", said Lakaseng.
The director of the Centre for Electoral Reform (Cetro), Smita Notosusanto, told Kompas that Cetro had also been receiving similar reports. "Moreover, it is not just the Democratic Party, but also the Functional Party of National Concern [that has received such treatment]. Cetro will be re-checking these complaints on the ground", she said.
Both the military and the Democratic Party have denied the allegations.
"Grave human rights violations, including extra-judicial executions of both adults and children", have been reported since the latest offensive was launched last May, the February 23 Amnesty statement said. "Anyone detained by the police and military in [Aceh] is at risk of torture, ill-treatment and other human rights violations", it added.
Aceh has been under a state of marshal law since May 19 when the Indonesian government launched its so-call "integrated operation" to destroy GAM and "restore law and order". Since then, more than 1000 alleged GAM members have been killed or arrested.
The military operation has resulted in the deaths and disappearance of hundreds of innocent civilians. Thousands more have been forced from their homes during military sweeps, and are now languishing in disease-ridden camps. The activities of human rights and non-government organisations (NGOs) have effectively been shut down as activists have been forced to flee to Jakarta in fear of their lives.
In the lead up to the April 5 Indonesian general elections, a number of human rights and Aceh solidarity organisations have begun to express growing concern that free and fair elections will be impossible in Aceh given the military's terror campaign.
The military has already said that it will tightly control the dissemination of information and campaigns by political parties in order to ensure that the elections are not "disrupted by irresponsible parties for their own interests".
The Aceh military emergency command initially denied the abducting the five human rights activists, but has now admitted that they are being "questioned" by the military in Lhokseumawe in northern Aceh. Their exact whereabouts, however, remain unknown.
Military spokesperson Colonel Ditya Sudarsono was reported by the February 25 Kompas as claiming that the activists "are not being questioned because they are non-government organisation activists, but because there are indications that the are involved with GAM or at the very least are GAM sympathisers".
Sudarsono said the police and the military will go after NGO activists in Aceh, claiming that many of them are accomplices of GAM. "What is certain is that the activists arrested [by security officers] are involved in the separatist movement", he told the February 26 Jakarta Post, adding: "We don't consider them activists, but people who either sympathise with GAM or openly help the rebels."
He also admitted that many NGO activists in Aceh had fled to Jakarta and other provinces, and that the military would seek to arrest them wherever they were. "Outside Aceh they are shouting that the military has committed abuses in Aceh... Clearly their actions hurt national interests. They have to be arrested and questioned."
From Green Left Weekly, March 3, 2004.
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