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Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes
March 2001
Escape from Aceh
Since June of last year, 500 people have been killed and 300 more are
missing in the Indonesian province of Aceh, in spite of a series of
cease-fires between the government and the armed separatist movement (GAM).
NEWS & LETTERS interviewed 22-year-old Nazaruddin Abdul Gani, who fled Aceh
in December after he reported this brush with death. -Editor.
I was a volunteer for RATA, Rehabilitation Action for Torture Victims in
Aceh, an organization based in the capital, Banda Aceh, and funded by the
International Red Cross in Denmark. I went to work for RATA in Lhokseumawe.
Many villagers came to the office asking if we could help bring peace. I
couldn't tell them when peace would come, because every day the situation
became worse and worse.
After ten months, three friends and I were kidnapped by the military. My
friends were two men, Idris and Bahtiar, and a woman, Ernita, who was a
nurse. We had been providing medical help in one village and were traveling
to another village, when three cars stopped our car. They did not wear
uniforms, but I recognized some of them as military men and informers. They
took our identification papers and then they tortured us. After we were
bloody, they took off our clothes and put us in their car. They took the
RATA symbols off our car, and used them to kidnap other people.
We were taken to a military station, where other soldiers asked the
commander if they could beat us too. They discussed the best way to kill
us. They drove us around, waiting until it got dark, so the public would
not see. Then they took us out of the car one by one. Bahtiar and I were
left in the car while Ernita and Idris were taken to an area with some
growth, to hide the killings. We heard our friends shot and killed.
In the car, Bahtiar helped me untie my hands. Then I tried to untie his,
but the soldiers came back. I pretended my hands were still tied. The
soldiers told us to get out of the car and to walk to where our friends had
just been killed. I broke away and ran in another direction. At that moment
I had no expectation of getting away; I just preferred to be shot in the
back than to watch them kill me. I ran, fell, got up, and ran some more.
All the time, the soldiers were shooting at me. Because it was dark, they
couldn't see me for long.
I followed a light to a village and went up to a house, where a villager
gave me clothes and food. I couldn't eat because my mouth was badly cut
during the torture. The whole village hid me there for two days. They
called the RATA office in Banda Aceh, and the "humanitarian pause" office
and the Henry Dunat Center. These humanitarian groups came and took me to
Banda Aceh. They found the bodies of my three friends. Then Sidney Jones of
Human Rights Watch came and took me to Jakarta, and then to New York. It
was not safe to stay in Aceh after I told my story.
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