Indonesian police chief General Suroyo Bimantoro on Wednesday blamed unchecked violence in Aceh province on rebels seeking independence from Indonesia.
"Attacks, shootings and kidnappings committed by GAM (the Free Aceh Movement) are still continuing," Bimantoro told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
The statement came after President Abdurrahman Wahid on Monday criticized the police, saying they were creating a climate of fear among Aceh's people and harming their own image.
Bimantoro said the deputy chief of the elite police mobile brigade (Brimob) would travel to Aceh to investigate Wahid's allegations that Brimob members fired shots a few days ago while people were conducting evening prayers during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
But the police chief defended his men.
"If we encounter enemies at night of course we have to deal with them right away. We cannot wait until the morning," he said.
In the latest incident, a policeman was killed and a colleague wounded when their van was ambushed by separatist guerillas in the Lamno area of West Aceh on Tuesday, Aceh police spokesman Kusbini Imbar said.
Imbar identified the dead man as Private Iskandar.
Wahid has also deplored the killings of three humanitarian workers attached to a Danish aid group and a civilian in North Aceh a week ago.
One humanitarian worker who was with the four other victims but escaped has since accused members of Indonesian security forces of complicity in torture and cold-blooded murder.
The police chief said security was being beefed up ahead of a visit by Wahid to the staunchly Muslim province scheduled for Tuesday.
During the visit the president is due to inaugurate partial Islamic sharia law in the province and hand over 10.5 million dollars in development aid, in yet another effort to pacify the clamor for independence.
About 800 people have died this year in violence related to clashes between GAM guerillas and government troops, despite a shaky truce which has been in force since June.
The two sides are scheduled to hold talks in Europe later this month, but have so far been unable to agree on a date.
Pressure for a vote on self-rule has intensified in Aceh since last year, when the former Portuguese colony of East Timor voted to break away from Indonesia.
Supporters of the Aceh rebels in Aceh have been embittered by nine years of harsh military operations against the GAM and Jakarta's siphoning off of the region's abundant natural resources -- JAKARTA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
