Jakarta - Indonesian police were investigating 'missing
flags' incidents in Aceh province as the country prepared to
celebrate its 62nd independence day, a senior police spokesman said
Tuesday.
Hundreds of flags hung ahead of Friday's national holiday went
missing in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Lhokseumawe, and
other towns and villages.
'We are currently investigating the incidents although we can't
deny the possibility it was done by ex-GAM members,' National Police
spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto, referring to the now-defunct rebel group
Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
'Until then, we still consider this as a case of common theft,' he
said.
Aceh, an oil-and-gas-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra
Island, was witness to a brutal 29-year conflict between the
Indonesian military and GAM guerrillas that killed as many as 20,000
people, mostly civilians.
The sides signed a peace agreement in August 2005, just months
after the 2004 Asian Tsunami killed 177,000 people in Aceh alone.
The peace has held, with GAM disarming in exchange for amnesty and
forming a political movement to contest local elections. In the first
such ballot in December 2006, former rebel member Irwandi Yusuf
became the province's first-ever directly elected governor.
However, tensions and mistrust between Indonesian nationalists and
former GAM members remains strong. The province has witnessed at
least four unexplained grenade attacks on the homes of ex-GAM
officials as well as government and police offices, stoking fears an
unknown group is trying to sabotage the peace because former rebels
are now in office.
Widodo A.S., the coordinating minister for political, legal and
security affairs in Jakarta, was openly angry about the flag thefts,
and local military commanders in Aceh threatened to 'shoot on sight'
any flag thieves.
In years past, Indonesian soldiers and police would order
residents at gunpoint to purchase and hang the red-and-white
Indonesian flag on their homes, cars and motorcycles in the run-up to
the August 17 anniversary of independence from Dutch colonial rule.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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