Posted on 11/16/2003 9:55:59 PM PST by Stultis
Review - Regions: New Aceh War Phase
November 16, 2003 10:06 PM,
Laksamana.Net - Though deploying 35,000 troops, the government and the military (TNI) have been disillusioned after promising a quick war against an original strength of 5,225, rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) fighters. The military claim there are only 2,665 left with 1,683 firearms.
Jakarta had said the martial law administration implemented on May 19 would have a four-pronged strategy. A military offensive to crush the rebels would be backed by a humanitarian mission to help war casualties.
Greater influence of the national police, particularly in GAM-controlled areas, and the strengthening of the local administrations and the civil service, especially in GAM areas where local civil servants are said to be sympathetic to the rebels, were to round off the game plan.
Now, entering the second six months of martial law, TNI plans to change its tactics, including sending in another strike unit which will operate in small units to hunt down the rebels.
More than 1,800 rebels have surrendered or been arrested since May, while more than 900 guerrillas and 67 police or soldiers have been killed. The death toll among civilians so far stands at 319, with 117 injured. The military also says top rebel leaders are still at large.
TNI will also improve its intelligence efforts to encourage the Acehnese to participate in the government's efforts to maintain the unitary republic, said Armed Forces Commander Gen. Endriartono Sutarto Monday (10/11/03).
The first six-month military operation has cost Rp 1.2 trillion ($141.2 million), but, Sutarto said, "the next operation will only cost some 60% of the first."
"The main aim of anti-guerrilla warfare is to separate the enemy from the people in the community. So our main objective is to make sure that GAM no longer gets community support and we will extricate them physically and emotionally," he said.
In anti-guerrilla combat operations, the fighting force is organized into three groups, led by a mobile strike unit, which can operate as a small unit and maintain a high degree of secrecy. “The job of this unit is to crush and eliminate GAM's armed forces and cut off their logistics supply lines," he said.
Another, skeleton, unit, would be tasked with securing populated areas, sterilizing the villages, securing lines of logistics going to the people and the military as well as digging for information and breaking down the enemy communications networks.
The last unit focuses on destroying strategic targets considered, he said.
Tired commander relieved
For the next six months, the operation's strategy will be adjusted, as the rebels are no longer operating in large groups, Sutarto told reporters at TNI headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta. "Small groups of soldiers will be more effective in hunting them down."
He also revealed plans to replace the Aceh military operation commander, Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono, with Brig. Gen. George Toisutta in the next two weeks. Toisutta was a former member of the joint security committee that oversaw an earlier five-month truce.
Army chief of staff Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu confirmed the replacement. “He (Darmono) is tired after having served in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam for so long," Ryacudu said at the close of a training session by the Army's Raider unit near Surabaya.
In mid December a deployment of some 7,000 soldiers from the Raider unit will replace some long serving troops in Aceh.
The Raiders, who have undergone training at several TNI's training camps, are able to mount ambushes from the air or water, as well as on land.
Cease-fire ruled out
The government on Friday ruled out any more truces or cease-fires unless the guerrillas give up their independence demand and disarm.
Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said officials from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had met President Megawati Sukarnoputri and asked her to agree to a cease-fire with GAM .
But, he told reporters, "it is not yet possible for us to impose a permanent political solution" if the rebels are still fighting.
"Indonesia believes that the Aceh problems can only be solved if GAM accepts the Unitary State of Indonesia under a special autonomy status (for Aceh) and they put down their weapons and liquidate their forces," the minister said.
The EU, US, Japan and several rights groups say there is no military solution to the separatist conflict that began in 1976. Rights groups accuse both sides of serious abuses but most foreign observers have been banned from the province under martial law.
Libya to help
Tripoli plans to give Indonesia military equipment and expertise to help the war effort in Aceh, presumably to compensate for the fact that around 400 Aceh rebels were trained in Libya in the 1980s.
The rebels reportedly returned to Aceh in 1989 and are said to be regarded by the military as the most dangerous and professional of the insurgents.
Sutarto said Libya would send several instructors who trained the rebels to Jakarta to help his forces track the insurgents down, Media Indonesia reported.
He said Libyan officials had promised two MI 35 helicopters, but he was hoping for more. "I am still negotiating the number of helicopters, if possible they will give more than two," he said.
"From my conversations with Libyan officials, they have promised to send several instructors from Libya who trained GAM personnel," he told a meeting with Commission I of the DPR House of Representatives Tuesday (11/11/03).
Besides that, Libya has promised to assist in the procurement of BTR-60 tanks.
Amnesty for 2,000 rebels
Megawati, who has not visited Aceh since she imposed martial law in the province on May 19, will visit the province in the third week of December when she is expected to attend a meeting of 4,000 Muslim clerics and inaugurate several government projects.
Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh confirmed the visit and said the president had also agreed to his proposal to grant amnesty to 2,000 separatist rebels who have surrendered and pledged allegiance to Indonesia.
But he said the government needed to consult first with the House of Representatives before granting the amnesty and Megawati had promised to discuss the issue immediately with the cabinet.
Puteh said those who surrendered have been given training in farming and other vocational skills.
During her first visit to Aceh in September 2001, Megawati shed tears when apologizing for the "mistakes of the past".
The Indonesian army has utilized extreme brutality in Aceh in the past, but seem to be (overall) fighting smart and fair this time around. Of course this won't stop the hard-left and radical muslims from insisting that Megawati must sit down around the campfire and sing Kumbayah with the islamist seperatists of the GAM.
20 killed in Aceh as prominent rebel jailed
JAKARTA: Twenty people, including 16 separatist rebels, have been killed in Indonesia’s war-hit Aceh province as a top guerrilla was jailed for 17 years on treason charges, the military and reports said on Sunday.
A court in northern Aceh town of Lhokseumawe also found Mustafa bin Ibrahim, 30, a deputy commander in the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), guilty of several other crimes, the Jakarta Post daily said. "Ibrahim was proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt of treason, arms possession and extortion," presiding judge Rahmawati reportedly told the trial.
Prosecutors had recommended a death sentence, but the judge said he had taken into account Ibrahim’s expression of remorse, pledge to quit GAM and his family. Ibrahim told the court he would appeal the jail term.
On May 19 the government launched an all-out military campaign to crush GAM, which has been fighting since 1976 for independence for the energy-rich province on Sumatra island. The campaign was extended for six months last week. The judges said Ibrahim had led some 120 men and committed crimes disrupting Aceh’s security and economy. He was caught with his wife in the North Sumatran city of Medan on October 20 as they were preparing to flee to Malaysia. His wife, Nurlina Binti Abdullah, has been sentenced to two years in jail. In a separate trial in Aceh’s capital, Banda Aceh, a district court jailed a businessman, Lasmadi M Namin, for 32 months for raising funds for GAM partly through extortion, the Jakarta Post said. Namin said he would appeal. Meanwhile as fighting continued, 16 suspected rebels and four civilians were killed between Thursday and Saturday, while nine guerrillas were arrested, government forces in Aceh said in a press release Sunday.
Guerrillas shot dead three civilians in three separate locations in South Aceh on Friday while residents found another civilian dead in East Aceh on Friday, the military release added.
The military has said more than 500 GAM rebels have already been sentenced to jail terms since the start of the campaign to wipe them out. More than 900 rebels have also been killed in the offensive, it said.
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