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STATE
OF ACHEH |
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PRESS
RELEASE The Leadership of the Acheh National Armed Forces, TNA, wishes to express our most hearfelt condolences to the family of the late Ersa Siregar killed by Indonesian troops last December 29, 2003. As usual in such brutal actions, the Indonesian military immediately blamed this heinous act on our forces. But when they discovered that there was a surviving independent eyewitness, none other than Ersa Siregars’s own cameraman, Ferry Santoro, the Chief of the Indonesian armed forces himself, Ramizad Ryacudu, has had to acknowledge that it was the bullets from his men that killed the journalist. He now of course assigned it to “crossfires”, saying that “bullets do not recognize journalists”. Indonesian military propaganda machine quickly spinned the yarn that our troops used the journalists as “human shields”. We are not going to engage in war of words with the the known liars. We shall let facts speak the truth. Let there be independent investigations on the matter. We have under our protection the eye witness who is still being pursued relentlessly by the Indonesian troops. We call on international humanitarian agencies to act quickly in order to prevent the same incident from occuring. To those interested to hear the truth, let it be known that there was no exchange of fires. Our unit or 12 men was suddently surrounded from all around and attacked and had no chance of responding. Those left behind by our soldiers were all unarmed: the two journalists and two of our soldiers. The first to fall to Indonesian bullets was one of our soldiers. When Ferry and the other soldier fled, the late Ersa Siregar was still standing with his hands up, press badge in hand and shouting his name and the words: “wartawan, wartawan, jangan tembak!” (journalist, journalist, don’t shoot”). Teungku Mansor TNA Spokesman – Peureulak Division On behalf of the TNA leaderhip |
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