Indonesian Soldiers Killed 51 Villagers, Investigators Say

A July attack by Indonesian soldiers on a village in Aceh province left 51 unarmed civilians dead, a government fact-finding team has announced.

Indonesia’s official Antara news agency reported Saturday that investigators had dismissed the military’s claims that many of those killed and five others who are missing had been separatist rebels. Investigation team member Azhary Basar said there was little evidence to suggest that there were any rebels in the village of Beutong Ateuh at the time.

Witnesses reported that soldiers had rounded up a group of villagers attending Islamic class and taken them to a nearby forest, where they were executed. The army contended that the victims were rebels killed in a gunfight with troops.

The fact-finding team--comprising government officials, human rights activists and police officers--presented its findings in the northern Sumatran province’s capital, Banda Aceh, on Saturday.

The team urged the government of Indonesia’s new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, to bring those involved in the massacre to trial.

Human rights activists have repeatedly called on the government to rein in Indonesia’s military, whose violent crackdowns have resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths in Aceh, the provinces of Maluku and Irian Jaya and the former Indonesian territory of East Timor.