---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- Precedence: bulk NINE ACEHNESE BROKE INTO THE DUTCH EMBASSY COMPOUND JAKARTA, Aug 4 (AFP) - Nine Acehnese, including a woman, broke into the Dutch embassy grounds here during a protest Wednesday and said they would camp there until their demands for help to win independence were met. "We'll stay here until our demands are met," the leader of the group, Faisal Putra, told reporters from behind the fence as night fell. "The embassy officials have asked us to hold talks, but we have done enough talking," he said. Putra told an AFP reporter they entered the embassy grounds at around 11:00 a.m., during a protest outside the mission by some 50 Acehnese. "It's sort of in between," embassy press and cultural affairs counsellor Geeskelien Wolters told AFP when asked if the area where the nine were camped, between two security gates near the entrance, was Dutch property. "We have asked them to go. We have forwarded their demand to the authorities in the Netherlands," Wolters said, but added she did not know when there would be a reply. An embassy security guard said the group, most of them well dressed and middle aged, dashed in through a high gate when it was opened to let in an embassy car. One of the protestors was allowed into the embassy building to meet embassy officials while the eight others remained trapped in the space between the double gates of the mission. The Acehnese were protesting outside the mission to demand that The Hague lobby the United Nations over "restoring the sovereign status of Aceh." An AFP reporter outside the embassy said the nine were sitting on the paving stones in the area between the gates and showed no signs of moving. He said the nine, who belonged to a group calling themselves "The United Peoples of Aceh" based in the Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, said their evening Moslem prayers on the ground. They were equipped with soft drinks, and later well-wishers brought them food and rattan mats to sleep on. "We came here on the will of Aceh people in order to provide a solution of the problems in Aceh," the lone woman in the group, Tjut Syamsurniati, 33, told AFP from behind the bars. She said embassy officials saw one of the group in the embassy early in the afternoon, but declined to say what had transpired in the meeting. But another group leader, T. Kamaruzzaman, said: "The embassy is still unable to answer our demands but they said they would discuss them with the Dutch government. "They demand that we leave in good manner otherwise they will use force by calling in the police." An officer at the Jakarta Police headquarters, who declined to be named, said the embassy had asked them to evacuate the protestors. But he said the head of the Jakarta police and the head of the Jakarta police operational division were still discussing what to do. He did not elaborate. The occupation of the embassy grounds coincided with the start of a general strike which paralyzed several major Acehnese cities Wednesday to demand the end of military violence in Aceh and the pullout of Indonesian troops from the separatist troubled province. On Wednesday afternoon Indonesian police chief Rusmanhadi announced police had launched a six-month long operation to combat the resurgence of separatism in Aceh. Rusmanhadi also said he had issued shoot on sight orders for any suspicious people carrying arms in the province. In the earlier protest at the embassy, the demonstrators had shouted "Independence is the right of the Aceh Nation." They also said they did not recognize Indonesia's sovereignty and urged the Netherlands, the old colonial masters of Indonesia, to revoke a March 26, 1873 declaration of war against the then sultanate of Aceh. tn-bs/kw/jd AFP 041241 GMT AUG 99 ---------- SiaR WEBSITE: http://apchr.murdoch.edu.au/minihub/siarlist/maillist.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 6 Aug 1999 jam 20:47:50 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
