BY PIP HINMAN
SYDNEY — Lesley McCulloch, who spent five months in an Acehnese prison last year, said the current level of repression against ordinary Acehnese by the Indonesian military and police is "extreme". Since martial law was declared on May 19, more than 140 civilians including 14 children have died. Seventeen cases of rape have been reported and 75 people have been taken by the military, are still missing and are presumed dead. There are many hundreds who have been injured, but who cannot get medical assistance, McCulloch told Green Left Weekly.
"In the first nine days, 300 school buildings were destroyed by groups of heavily armed men. The Indonesian government has accused the separatist movement, but local people report that these acts have been carried out by the military operating together with groups of militia", said McCulloch.
"It's increasingly difficult to get information on exactly what is happening in the villages and towns of Aceh as NGOs have been ordered to leave, and journalists not embedded with the military are being prevented from traveling to trouble spots. More worrying, humanitarian workers and human rights defenders have been threatened and harassed, and many have been arrested."
The Acehnese community in Sydney and Australian supporters of the Acehnese people's struggle for national self-determination are calling on the Australian government to take action to avert a similar humanitarian crisis as took place in East Timor in August 1999. They want the Australian government to commit to immediate humanitarian relief; to urge the Indonesian government to revoke the imposition of martial law in Aceh, and to pull its troops out; to urge Jakarta to return to the negotiations over the ceasefire agreement, and resume talks to find a political solution to the crisis in Aceh; to offer temporary safe haven to those Acehnese already displaced and whose lives are under immediate threat; and to invite the Indonesian ambassador to Australia to give the Australian government a guarantee that international norms and conventions on the protection of civilians in war will be strictly adhered to. For more information contact Eye on Aceh, PO Box 1042, Dee Why, NSW 2099, or phone 0405 226 450.
From Green Left Weekly, June 4, 2003.
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