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Militia mayhem in strife-torn
Aceh
By Lesley McCulloch
In
the remote area of Aceh Tengah (Central Aceh) there is a
new and growing problem for the civilian population: the
presence of militia.
The rarely visited area has experienced
a devastating attack on the social and economic fabric
of society. The enclave's economy has almost ground to a
halt, many schools and clinics have been destroyed, whole
villages burned or deserted, and the smell of fear is
tangible.
Official local government figures for
2001 state that more than 1,900 houses were burned in
this small district alone, and there were almost 400
conflict-related deaths. To the local population of only
300,000, this is a devastating blow. The real figure,
however, is substantially higher. A local journalist
(whose identity must be protected for fear of reprisals)
has been keeping his own tally of the death and
destruction. He alleges that more than 2,200 houses were
burned and 450 died. In addition, many have disappeared
(presumed dead), many have been tortured, and several
thousand fled the area because of the worsening security
situation.
Who is responsible for the havoc and
destruction in Aceh Tengah? The official story is that
the Aceh Sumatra National Liberation Front (ASNLF -
commonly known as GAM) or groups of unidentified persons
are responsible. There is however, an alternative
version of the cause of such abuses.
The casual
observer may be forgiven for assuming that this violence
too, as elsewhere in Aceh, is the result of actions by
the military and police. And to a degree it is. But
there is a more sinister element to the events in this
remote area.
There are many allegations that the
house burnings, killings, disappearances etc are carried
out by groups of militia. These militia have allegedly
been recruited, trained and armed by the military, and
often operate in conjunction with them - but also alone.
There is in fact strong evidence to link the army's
special forces command, Kopassus, with the militia. It
is now common knowledge that Kopassus was instrumental
in the setting up of the militia groups in East Timor.
It is of course extremely difficult to prove a
military-militia connection. But when one listens to the
many witness accounts from various areas in Aceh Tengah,
clear evidence emerges. The truth can no longer be
ignored. Convincing anecdotal evidence that these groups
of "unknown thugs" often said by the government to be
Aceh Merdeka personnel are in fact well organized
militia. The militia are not merely backed by "rogue"
elements of the military, but by the local commanders.
Their mission: to seek and destroy members of the ASNLF
and their supporters. In addition, there is a systematic
attempt to destroy the economic and social fabric of
this remote community. An ex-militia member, now in
hiding as he fears for his life, said: "We had orders
from the army to make the Acehnese suffer. To show them
they cannot win. To destroy their society."
Of
the many stories of militia attacks, one was
particularly troubling. Not because of the sheer
brutality of it - there are indeed many similar stories
- but because of the severe state of trauma of the
victim.
The victim is in a remote and "safe"
village in Aceh Besar. The attack had taken place in
Aceh Tengah but he had fled to safety. The identity,
location and the date must remain undisclosed as the
perpetrators were given to believe the victim did not
survive the attack. Also, his family remain in the area.
According to "D", eight members of the militia
came to his house looking for him. He was not home at
the time, and his wife told them she did not know where
he had gone. When the militia eventually caught up with
"D", they accused him of being a member of the
independence movement, which he denied.
The
group then traveled to the outskirts of the village
where "D" alleges he was beaten with an iron bar to
force a confession. When the militia began to hit him
around the head he feared he would lose consciousness.
"D" begged for mercy. So the beating stopped -
temporarily - to allow him to regain his composure. The
torture then began again, even more viciously than
before.
The militia then took "D" to the local
graveyard, where, he says, "I was forced to dig my own
grave. But I was very weak and the grave was shallow. I
thought then I would die." The iron bar was then used to
push him into the grave, where he was buried.
"When they had covered me with earth and
everything was dark, they started to stab me with their
bayonets through the grave. I passed out. Just before
the darkness covered my brain, I thought of my wife and
baby, and asked God to keep them safe."
But by
some miracle, "D" survived the vicious attack and woke
up much later. He doesn't know how long he was
unconscious. Unable to walk, he began to crawl toward
the village. Friends found him and took him to the local
hospital.
The mental scars suffered by "D" from
this trauma are almost as visible as the physical ones.
He speaks in barely a whisper, his mind frozen in the
moments of horror when he thought he would die. His
chilling account of what happened to him is not so
unusual in Aceh.
How does "D" know the group who
attacked were indeed the militia and not members of the
independence movement? According to "D", the distinction
is quite easy: "These people were Javanese. They looked
Javanese, and did not speak Acehnese. Also, they were
well known in the area as army-backed militia."
In Aceh a struggle for independence has been
raging for the past 30 years. In the past few years the
ASNLF has been enjoying increasingly widespread support
from a majority of the population.
Since 1998
about 5,000 have died because of the conflict, more than
500 this year alone. The number of deaths,
disappearances, tortures and rapes that is generally
attributed to the military and police (and now to the
military-backed militia) is one of the reasons for
increasing support for the ASNLF.
Lesley
McCulloch lectures in Asian Studies at the
University of Tasmania.
(©2002 Asia Times
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