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'...should
not hesitate to shoot, while enjoining them not to be
worried about being assailed for violating human rights. No
doubt, these words will ring particularly loudly in the ears
of the specially trained counter-insurgency forces being
diispatched to Acheh, encouraged by a government decision
branding their enemy as 'separatist' and therefore a
legitimate target for obliteration.'
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 NI
COMMANDER IN CHIEF Admiral Widodo was
speaking at the Kopassus Training Centre in Batu Jajar,
Bandung, West Java, when inspecting a joint TNI force that
has been under training by Kopassus. The joint forces which
have undergone internsive counter-insurgency training will
leave for Acheh on Sunday, 20 April.
As is now absolutely clear, although this special command
will, formally speaking, exist at the same level as the
police, all operations against GAM will from now on be fully
in the hands of the army, under the command of TNI, the
armed forces headquarters.
Widodo was accompanied by army chief-of-staff General
Endriartono Sutarto, the air force chief of staff Marshall
Hanafie Asnan and other top-ranking TNI officers.
A joint force of eleven companies have been undergoing
training in Batu Jajar, including troops from the army's
strategic command KOSTRAD, special airforce troops PASKHAS,
the Marines and Puspom, the military police.
Widodo said that the operations of the armed separatists in
Acheh had recently intensified both in number and quality,
especially since March 2001 and now included 'clandestine'
activities aimed at spreading terror and intimidation. The
Cabinet decision on 12 March this year had labelled GAM as a
separatist movement and decided on the need for a special
operation to deal with the movement.
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WASHINGTON POST, MSNBC, Human Right Watch and BBC |
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The new command, Kolaops,
will be in charge of anti-guerrilla operations in Acheh and
will be conducted under a state of 'civil order' (not a
state of emergency) and will represent TNI's contribution to
the restoration of security in Acheh, alongside the police (Polri).
Widodo said that all TNI troops in Acheh would operate under
the command of Kolaops TNI.
Overall command of operations in Acheh will be under a
Command for Security in Acheh, headed by a police officer of
Inspector-General rank, under which Kolaops TNI would
function alongside a Polri Kolaops. The two forces would
however function quite separately, though where necessary
there would be coordination between them. However, Kolaops
Polri will confine its operations to the towns and cities
and to other parts of Acheh where there
are no security disturbances; its duties will be confined to
maintaining law and order.
In other words, although the formality of overall police
command has been preserved, so as to avoid using the term
'military operation' (presumably in deference to the
sensibilities of President Wahid), the security operations
are now fully-fledged military operations with the army in
complete control.
12,000 troops for Kolaops Alongnside the North Sumatra
Regional Territorial Command I/Bukit Barisan, Kolaops TNI in
Acheh will function under the direct command of the TNI
commander in chief. In other words, it will not be
subordinate to the regional commander but operate as a
separate, counter-insurgency force. The Kolaops commander
Brig.General Zumroni will have no fewer than 12 thousand
troops under him.
Given that it is widely acknowledged that there are at
present 30,000 troops in Acheh, including the police force,
this will take the total number of troops in Acheh to well
above 40,000.
It is as well to recall that the armed forces created a
similar operational structure in East Timor in the early
1980s, the name of which was almost identical, Kolakops
which also operated during its early years under the armed
forces commander in Jakarta.
Following Inpres No IV/2001 issued by President Wahid on 11
April, top-ranking TNI officers publicly expressed their
disappointment that the president had failed to place the
new operations under military command and
had referred only to the TNI and the police working
together. However, the armed forces have neatly 'overcome'
this apparent setback by setting up a
huge military command force of their own charged
specifically with counter-insurgency operations against GAM
and pushed the police onto the sidelines.
Kompas quoted Bukit Barisan commander, Major-General IG
Purnawa as saying that GAM are thought to have one thousand
men under arms but are believed to be continually recruiting
new members. It is not possible, therefore, to know for sure
how many men they have under arms. He said that 'all TNI
troops in Acheh would be under the command of the Kolaops
commander'. This would appear to mean that Kolaops will be
in overall command of the territorial troops as well as the
non-organic troops brought in for special counter-insurgency
duty.
Speaking to the men who are shortly to be dispatched to
Acheh, Widodo said the objective of the operation was
to separate the people from the armed separatists and to
encourage the people to resist the disturbances. The
separatists must be destroyed, he said, the functions of the
local government must be restored, the symbols of state
sovereignty must be upheld and vital enterprises must be
able to resume operations.
He instructed the men to operate in conformity with the laws
in force and to avoid inappropriate actions, while
respecting the local customs and traditions, in order to win
over the support of the people.
However, two days earlier, as reported by coridor.com, the
army chief-of-staff, General Endriartono Sutarto told troops
in Jakarta that when their lives were under threat, they
should not hesitate to shoot, while enjoining them not to be
worried about being assailed for violating human rights. No
doubt, these words will ring particularly loudly in the ears
of the specially trained counter-insurgency forces being
diispatched to Acheh, encouraged by a government decision
branding their enemy as 'separatist' and therefore a
legitimate target for obliteration.
Although senior army officers as well as defence minister
Mahfud have insisted that army intelligence have been given
special training to identify the 'armed rebels' and 'map'
their precise presence, it is not difficult to predict that
the civilian population will, as in the past, bear the brunt
of the deadly armed force now unleashed in Acheh by the
Indonesian armed forces.
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