III. THE KILLINGS AT BUMI FLORA

On August 9, 2001, one of the worst single massacres of the war in Aceh took place. Dozens of armed men dressed in camouflage uniforms entered one of the housing areas of PT Bumi Flora, a rubber and palm oil plantation in East Aceh, and shot thirty men and a two-year-old child to death. Seven others were wounded. The Indonesian government and GAM immediately accused each other of the killings.

The military said it had no operations in the area on that day, and in any case, the area was GAM-controlled. It claimed that the camouflage uniforms worn resembled those belonging to the Malaysian military, pointing to GAM. Initially, security forces suggested that GAM had sent a unit to extort wages from the workers, and when the workers did not want to pay, they were shot.⁵ Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono told reporters that a report from the Aceh police prepared on the day after the massacre suggested that GAM had carried out the killings after it had failed to convince the workers at the plantation to go on strike.⁶ By January 2002, government officials in Banda Aceh were saying that the plantation owner had earlier been threatened by GAM because he failed to pay a specific sum of money on demand, and that the killings were punishment for that failure.⁷

For its part, GAM pointed out that all the victims were Acehnese, and GAM had never engaged in the slaughter of its own people. It said that the Indonesian army was responsible, and that the massacre was in retaliation for a GAM attack on an Indonesian army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia or TNI) post two days earlier in which, it claimed, twenty-five soldiers were killed.⁸ It also called for an independent international investigation. The GAM leadership in Banda Aceh was so angry at the space given the army version of events in the local newspaper that it forced the paper to close for almost a month.

Over the next few weeks, several efforts were made to investigate the killings. The pro-referendum political organization, Sentral Informasi Untuk Referendum Aceh (SIRA), produced a detailed report on August 11.⁹ That report had more information than any produced to that point, but not all of it was accurate, and SIRA was in any case not seen as independent by the government. Some of its members were close to GAM, and the government considered it the political wing of the guerrillas, although in fact, the organizations were not linked. The SIRA report concluded that the perpetrators were members of "non-organic" forces - that is, those brought in by the central government from outside Aceh - who were stationed inside the Bumi Flora plantation. The motivation for the killing, it said, was a surprise early morning attack by GAM guerrillas on a TNI post in the village of Alue Ie Mirah on August 8, in which "more than twenty" soldiers were killed.¹⁰ The government has never acknowledged that any soldiers died.

On August 14, senior officials of the East Aceh district government agreed to form a fact-finding team (Tim Pencari Fakta or TPF). Members of the TPF were appointed by the governor, who named Yusuf Puteh, a respected human rights activist, as chair. It also included representatives of the military and police. The team was eventually able to meet with fourteen eyewitnesses, whose testimonies, leaked over the Internet in late August, pointed to the army as the killers. Differences of opinion among the team members prevented any formal conclusions being drawn, however, or any report from being issued.

On August 19, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) known to Human Rights Watch interviewed a witness, identified only as the wife of one of the victims, whose testimony also pointed to the army. That testimony was later made widely available over the Internet, but the name of the NGO was never made public.

Then, on August 24, 2001, a team from Komnas HAM, the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission, arrived in Aceh. It was led by B.N. Marbun and fellow commissioner Mohammad Salim, an Acehnese. The two commissioners, together with a staff member from Jakarta and two members of Komnas HAM's branch office in Banda Aceh, met with numerous eyewitnesses to the massacre and recorded their interviews on tape. Those interviews, together with notes and documents collected on what was officially billed as an "observation" rather than an investigation, were compiled into an internal document entitled Report of an Observation by Komnas-HAM, The Case of Bumi Flora, Aceh Timur, 24-26 August 2001. Human Rights Watch has obtained and translated in full the transcripts of the interviews, with names of witnesses deleted for their protection. It has also translated excerpts of other parts of the report, all of which are reproduced below.

The document as a whole is revealing, both as a record of eyewitness accounts as well as an illustration of how Komnas HAM conducts interviews. All of the witnesses interviewed believed that the Indonesian army was responsible for the killings: they point out separately and independently that none of the attackers spoke Acehnese. All but one wore camouflage shirts or uniforms with a pattern used by the Indonesian army, but as both parties to the conflict have used each other's uniforms in the past, that in itself would not be conclusive. Two of the women said that the attackers had criticized them for not raising the Indonesian flag as Indonesia's national day, August 17, 2001, approached.

None of the witnesses were able to name or give clear physical descriptions of any of the perpetrators, and the evidence they give is circumstantial. While it is perhaps possible that they were all coached beforehand to give similar accounts, the level of detail and the distinctiveness of their accounts suggest otherwise. Moreover, two people present at the interviews told Human Rights Watch that the witnesses were highly credible.¹¹ At the very least, one of them told us, the interviews produced "strong indications" of military responsibility, certainly enough to have provided a basis for further investigation.¹²

In their August 30, 2001 report on their findings, Commissioners Marbun and Salim did indeed recommend that a formal Commission of Inquiry (Komisi Penyelidik Pelanggaran Hak Asasi Manusia or KPP) be established in accordance with Article 18 of Law No.26/2000 on the establishment of Human Rights Courts.

The two commissioners recommended, however, that before proceeding further, Komnas HAM should get security guarantees from both sides to ensure the safety of its investigators.¹³

Only on January 8, 2002, however, did Komnas HAM formally agree in a plenary session to set up the commission of inquiry into the Bumi Flora case, and all evidence suggests that the stumbling block was not the question of security guarantees. It was lack of political will, demonstrated by the conduct of the observation mission, the lack of follow-up, and Komnas HAM's overall track record in Aceh.

5 "38 civilians killed in Aceh massacre: military," Agence France Presse, August 10, 2001. In its initial report, AFP counted as dead the seven survivors who were brought to local hospitals.

6 "Govt to set up team to probe Aceh massacre," Jakarta Post, August 13, 2001.

7 Human Rights Watch Interview, Banda Aceh, January 24, 2002.

8 "38 civilians killed in Aceh massacre: military," Agence France Presse, August 10, 2001.

9 "Urgent Report on Preliminary Investigation: The Massacre in East Aceh," Aceh Referendum Information Centre, August 11, 2001.

10 Ibid., p.1.

11 Human Rights Watch interviews, Banda Aceh, January 21 and 25, 2002. Two survivors reportedly made subsequent statements suggesting GAM was responsible, but both had been held in government custody, and neither was interviewed by the Komnas team. The team did ask about one of the two, who was reported at the time to be in the custody of the district military command, but the commander denied knowing anything about him, and the Komnas team dropped the matter.

12 Human Rights Watch interview, Banda Aceh, January 25, 2002.

13 Komnas HAM, Report of an Observation by Komnas-HAM, The Case of Bumi Flora, Aceh Timur, 24-26 August 2001 [hereafter, Observation Report], Jakarta, August 30, 2001, p.6