Copyright © The Straits Times, July 29, 1998
600 'Raped In Aceh Over Past Seven Years'
BANDA ACEH (Indonesia) -- Non-governmental organisations (NGO) have told a
parliamentary group investigating violence in this autonomous Indonesian region
that some 600 women had been raped over the past seven years, many allegedly by
the military.
Mr Abdurrahman Yakub, an executive at the Banda Aceh Legal Aid Foundation, said
625 women in Aceh were raped and tortured between 1990 and last year and that
some cases involved military personnel, a source said yesterday.
A victim identified as Ms Nurhayati told the investigating team at the Aceh
Ulemas (Muslim religious teachers) Assembly: "I was stripped naked and
given the electric shock treatment by Kopassus members.'' Kopassus refers to the
military's special forces unit.
An NGO member identified as Soraya, 38, referring to riots in Jakarta in which
hundreds of ethnic-Chinese women were gang-raped, said: "Don't just look at
the May 13-14 incident in Jakarta alone. The cases that went on in Aceh are
graver and greater.''
The seven-man fact-finding team headed by Mr Hari Sabarno is charged with
investigating the situation in areas under military operational control, the
official Antara News Agency said.
The army has been deployed for decades in Aceh, home of the separatist
"Free Aceh'' drive for a Muslim state.
The greatest number of rape cases occurred in 1990 and continued until April,
the NGOs said, adding that the rapes had involved soldiers from various units.
Victims in Aceh who met the team on Monday urged the government to pay more
attention to human-rights abuses in Aceh.
A joint report by NGOs, the administration and the military showed that some of
the 1,670 people listed as missing between 1990 and last year had turned up
dead. AFP
The Politics of Gender, Islam,
and Nation-State in Aceh (Thesis abstract, 1997)
The Forgotten Cost of Counter-insurgency in Aceh (from
"Inside Indonesia" magazine, January-March 1997)
A
Tortured Grandmother (from The
Sydney Morning Herald, August 29, 1998)
The Wake Up
Call for Acehnese Women
(NYU Conference, December 12, 1998)
Muslim
Women In Freedom Fight (from
The Christian Science Monitor, July 23, 1999)
A Widow's
Notes (from
"Inside Indonesia" magazine, April - June 2000)
Defending
Women’s Rights in Aceh (from
Tapol, April 2000)
