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| Southeast Asia |
| Aceh rebels say police "kidnap" their negotiator |
| 2003-05-12 |
| Separatist rebels in Aceh province said on Monday that security forces had "kidnapped" their senior negotiator from a hotel where he was staying. "The colonial government of Indonesia must immediately release Amri Abdul Wahab... who was again kidnapped by Indonesian colonial security forces on May 12," Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Sofyan Dawood said in a statement. Wahab was one of the GAM negotiators who were arrested on Friday and subsequently declared suspects in bombings which police have blamed on GAM in Jakarta and Medan in North Sumatra. They were released Sunday on a guarantee from the Henry Dunant Center, which has mediated peace talks between Jakarta and the separatist rebels. More than 50 international peace monitors withdrew Monday from Aceh and a ceasefire agreement between the government and GAM, signed in December, was close to collapse. |
| Posted by:Tadderly |
| #2 actually colonial makes sense in some situations - the limitation of the world colonial to situations where 1st worlders repressed 3rd worlders was always arbitrary,and was done for the benefit of the old USSR and some 3rd world countries. Doubt it quite applies to Aceh, but Indonesian rule over Irian Jayan (western new Guinea) has strong overtones of colonialism. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-05-12 12:43:18 |
| #1 No reason they shouldn't call the Indonesian gov't colonial; much of Indonesia has little in common with the dominant Javanese. Indonesia is a very very varied colonial empire that was basically inherited bu the Javanese from the Dutch. Much like India in this regard, though the Indians have done a better job of regional self-government that takes some of the sting out. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2003-05-12 14:21:16 |