(New York) Human Rights Watch today called on the Indonesian government to immediately launch a thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of Indonesian activist Sukardi, whose body was found last week in South Aceh. The rights group urged Jakarta-based diplomats and donors pledging aid to the new government to condemn the recent spate of killings of civilians in Aceh, and to insist that those responsible be apprehended and brought to justice.
"Civilians are increasingly being targeted in Aceh and the killers walk away untouched," said Joe Saunders, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "Justice must be done in these cases if there is to be any hope of defusing the conflict."
Sukardi, a volunteer with the Bamboo Thicket Institute (Yayasan Rumpun Bambu Indonesia), a local environmentalist group, disappeared on January 31, 2000. According to reliable Acehnese sources, his naked corpse was found on February 1 riddled with bullet holes and showing signs of torture, including a swollen face and broken right hand. The perpetrator is unknown.
The killing of Sukardi is the most recent in a spate of recent killings of civilians. According to the Aceh office of the Indonesian Legal Aid Society, in January alone, there were 115 case of torture, twenty-one summary executions, thirty-three arbitrary arrests, seven people ‘disappeared,' and 416 homes and shops razed. Many of the victims were unarmed civilians. On January 25, 2000, the body of Nashiruddin Daud, 58, Indonesian MP from Aceh and vice-chairman of the parliament's commission of inquiry into rights abuses in Aceh, was found near a main street in the North Sumatran capital of Medan near Aceh. Nashiruddin had campaigned for the prosecution of military officers guilty of rights abuses in Aceh.
The killings are not the first of their kind. In the violence that has wracked Aceh for the past two years, there have been dozens of such killings, referred to in.Indonesia as "mysterious shootings" (penembak misterious or petrus), a phrase first used by Indonesian authorities to describe a rash of killings of alleged criminals and thugs in Java in the early 1980s. President Soeharto later conceded that the army had been behind those killings.
In Aceh, both the army and the rebels have been accused of killing civilians suspected of being informants or of siding with the adversary, and there have been reports of dozens of such killings in the past year.
The most recent killings come as police gear up for operations they are calling Sadar Rencong (lit. "Aware of the Acehnese Dagger"), phase III. Police leaders say the goal of the operation is to apprehend some 800 rebels. Visitors to Aceh report a continued strong troop presence and an increasing violence on all sides despite Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid statements calling on security forces to use peaceful means wherever possible, rejecting a declaration of martial law for the province, and insisting on dialogue between civilian leaders and parties to the conflict.
Noting that the new police offensive and possible responses by armed rebels are likely to increase the danger to civilians, Saunders added: "Existing cases of abduction and murder of civilians must be thoroughly investigated, and the perpetrators, whether soldiers or rebels, must be prosecuted. Otherwise, the low level of trust in government will be eroded even further."
For more information contact:
Joseph Saunders: (w) 212 216 1207 (h) 718 398 8893
Mike Jendrzejczyk: (w) 202 612 4341 (h) 301 585 5824
