In what witnesses described as a massacre, Indonesian troops shot dead up to 60 people and wounded 10 last Friday in two villages in the western part of Aceh, the oil-rich region on the northern tip of Sumatra. It was the worst military killing this year in what has become an escalating campaign to suppress the secessionist Free Aceh movement.

Military officials claimed that the victims in the first village were Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) fighters killed in a surprise dawn attack on their base. But witnesses and human rights groups said troops had executed unarmed villagers.

Iskander Muda legal aid foundation director Yakub Hamzah said the villagers were asked to gather for an identity check on a field in the Beutong Ateuh area of West Aceh, about 350 kilometres west of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The troops then opened fire. “There was no resistance at all and apparently the shooting was planned in the first place,” Hamzah told reporters. He said troops had come to the area from two directions, including about 300 from West Aceh and 17 truckloads from Central Aceh.

One witness, quoted by Reuters, said the victims were gunned down when soldiers and police ordered them out of a house as they searched for a secessionist leader. They commanded that the men inside the house come out and open their shirts, the witness said.
	The bodies were thrown into an abandoned well

The people who were outside were shot.” The bodies were thrown into an abandoned well. “Before the troops left, they said: ‘We will come back',” the witness said.

A local military commander, Syarifudin Tippe, told journalists that the victims were killed during fighting with soldiers and police. Yet no soldiers or police were reported injured. The authorities said they had killed a rebel leader, Tengku Bataqiah, but an Aceh Merdeka spokesman said Tengku Bataqiah was a local religious leader.

The Jakarta-based Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence said local people had reported killings in a second village. Munir, a Commission spokesman, said the area was under tight military control, hampering efforts to contact witnesses or examine the scene. “The military are trying to hunt [rebel] leaders in the area,” he said.

The killings are part of an emerging pattern. According to a statement issued by 17 non-government organisations, the Habibie regime and the Indonesian military have launched a “state of terror” in Aceh. They said that military sweeps of areas dominated by secessionist supporters had forced up to 120,000 people to flee their homes and seek shelter in camps along the northern coast. Troops were running amok through villages, stealing animals, burning houses and sometimes raping women. Displaced people were often living in poor conditions, with food and medicines in short supply. Children were dying from malnutrition and lack of medical care.
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