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| Southeast Asia | |
| Aceh rebels vow to continue Armed Struggle | |
| 2004-08-24 | |
| Indonesia's military offensive against separatists in Aceh province has failed to crush the insurgency and has left government forces in a quagmire from which they cannot escape, a senior rebel commander said Monday. Tjut Kafrawi, commander of rebel forces in eastern Aceh, also pledged that the insurgents would press on with their struggle for independence regardless of the outcome of Indonesia's presidential elections. ``We are still a strong force,'' Kafrawi told The Associated Press in one of the first interviews with a rebel leader since the government announced recently it had made major advances against insurgents in the region rich with oil and natural gas. ``We will continue our fight,'' Kafrawi said from a jungle base in eastern Aceh. Kafrawi dismissed Indonesian military claims it has killed about 2,000 fighters of the Free Aceh Movement and captured thousands of others since May, when the government ended a six-month truce, pulled out of internationally brokered peace talks and arrested rebel negotiators. ``Only a fifth of the casualties are our fighters, while the rest are civilians,'' Kafrawi said. Foreign analysts say the military offensive - in which the government has engaged about 55,000 soldiers, marines and paramilitary policemen - has barely made a dent in the insurgency, a guerrilla force estimated to number about 5,000 men and women. Initially, the United States backed efforts by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center, which arranged the cease-fire, and provided funding for the peace
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| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Indonesia’s military offensive against separatists in Aceh province has failed to crush the insurgency and has left government forces in a quagmire from which they cannot escape, a senior rebel commander said Monday. Quagmire? Where has that been heard before? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-08-24 11:08:18 AM |