Aceh Arsonists Burn 144 Schools

More than 140 schools have been destroyed by arsonists in Indonesia’s war-torn province of Aceh during the first two days of a military offensive aimed at crushing separatist rebels, authorities said Tuesday.

Each side blamed the other for destroying the schools as fighting in the province claimed the lives of at least a dozen people. One official said witnesses saw masked men in civilian clothes torching some of the schools, but authorities said no one had been apprehended for any of the fires.

For the second day, the Indonesian military dropped soldiers by parachute into central Aceh as the government mounted its largest offensive in the province in years.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri, in her first public comments since declaring martial law in the province Sunday, urged Indonesians to support her effort to maintain the country’s territorial integrity.

“It was with a heavy heart that for the sake of national integrity, human rights and to uphold the law, I had to impose martial law in Aceh province,” she said.

Indonesia’s central government has been fighting the rebels in Aceh for 27 years in one of the world’s longest-running wars. The military has mobilized more than 45,000 troops to hunt down an estimated 5,000 rebels.

The two sides agreed to a cease-fire in December that called for the army to pull back to its barracks and for fighters of the Free Aceh Movement to disarm. But the accord did not resolve the fundamental question of whether the province should become independent, and the pact eventually unraveled.

At last-minute peace talks held over the weekend in Tokyo, Indonesia insisted that the rebels give up their quest for independence and accept special autonomy status -- a demand the rebels equated to surrender.

The United States, which had helped mediate the cease-fire, urged Indonesia and the rebels to halt fighting and resume talks. “It’s our judgment that the possible avenues to a peaceful resolution were not fully explored at the Tokyo conference,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. “We call for the two parties to return to the negotiating process as soon as possible.”

The schools were among the first casualties of the renewed fighting. Military spokesman Yani Basuki in Aceh said that 144 schools were destroyed. Military officials had earlier put the number at 183, but Basuki said that figure referred to the total number of school buildings that were torched.

Basuki said most of the schools that were burned are in the vicinity of army posts and were targeted by the rebels to make it appear that the military was behind the destruction. The rebels’ aim, he said, was to show the populace that martial law will only bring disaster to the province.

“They always use a scorched-earth policy in Aceh, especially in areas where there are [military] posts,” he said.

The Free Aceh Movement denied responsibility for the school burnings and blamed the government for staging the attacks in an effort to implicate the rebels.

“It is engineered by the military,” said Sofyan Dawood, a spokesman for the movement reached by telephone in Aceh.

“Don’t blame the Free Aceh Movement or civilians,” Dawood said. “The Indonesian military should be responsible for whatever happens in Aceh. They said they will distinguish the Free Aceh Movement from civilians, but in fact, the victims are the Acehnese.”

Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, head of the Indonesian military, visited the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and exhorted his troops to fight the rebels “until your last drop of blood.”

“You are trained to kill, so wipe them out,” Sutarto told his men.

Rebel leaders charged that 17 civilians were among the casualties in the first two days of fighting. The military said soldiers shot and killed 12 rebels.