John Martinkus visits Indonesia's troubled Aceh province, where recently he secured an extremely rare interview with a senior GAM rebel commander - in fact, the first in 2.5 years. John's tricky, even dangerous jungle meeting with the Aceh rebels is especially timely, given that this week Washington announced the resumption of military cooperation between the US and Indonesia 13 years after they'd banned cooperation over military abuses in East Timor. Observers, of course, argue that those Indonesian abuses didn't stop with Timor, they've simply been extended to Aceh and Papua. Despite the tsunami deaths of more than 250,000 Acehnese, the ongoing struggle between the Indonesian military and the Free Aceh Movement goes on.

REPORTER: John Martinkus

All foreigners in Aceh are supposed to be restricted to the devastated capital, Banda Aceh, and the town of Meulaboh. But these fighters from the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, are escorting me to their hideout in the hills outside the capital. It's a long walk and we must be careful to avoid the Indonesian military, which patrols this area.

REPORTER: Thank you for agreeing to the interview. Thank you very much for bringing me up here.

Commander Muharram is one of GAM's most senior military leaders, responsible for around 1,000 troops in this part of Aceh.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM, GAM MILITARY LEADER (Translation): You're welcome. We've been wanting foreign journalists to come here since martial law started. Today, after the tsunami disaster, foreign journalists are coming. That means there's a big opportunity for us to tell them exactly what's happening in Aceh. We're very grateful to them for coming to our place, which is very simple.

About 50 men live in this camp, spread out on a steep hillside with only a few tarpaulins for shelter and thick clouds of mosquitos for company. When not on patrol, they are trapped here waiting here for the next firefight. They're constantly on the run. Their last camp was attacked by the Indonesian army on January 20.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM (Translation): There were five truck loads of troops. They crept into our camp without our knowledge. And then they attacked our base.

In the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami, GAM declared a unilateral cease-fire that was soon echoed by the Indonesian army, or TNI. But there's growing evidence that the TNI is continually violating the cease-fire.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM (Translation): After they attacked us, armed clashes continued for two hours. We also had to defend ourselves. They also attacked us with a large number of troops. We had to retreat. Two of my men were victims. They were shot.

This is one of the men wounded in that attack.

WOUNDED MAN (Translation): So I was shot here in this spot.

MAN (Translation): Where's the other spot?

WOUNDED MAN (Translation): From here down to there. Two places.

MAN (Translation): Is it still bleeding? Did you fire back?
Get dressed. There are so many flies around.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI, TNI SPOKESMAN (Translation): The thing that GAM does best is lie. They're really good at it.

Lieutenant Colonel Edi Susliadi is the TNI spokesman for military operations in Aceh. He says his men are observing the cease-fire.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI (Translation): Actually, since the tsunami we have made a decision that our troops are to engage in active defensive operations. We won't seek them out, we won't pursue them. But if they're disruptive we will deal with them. That's how it is.

REPORTER: So the operations you're carrying out since the tsunami, you are not going into the hills, you are not trying to catch GAM, you are not trying to go to go to their camps and attack them there? Is that correct?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI (Translation): We won't chase GAM, kill GAM or seek GAM out.

Over the past 18 months, these men have survived the Indonesian military's best attempts to wipe them out. In mid-2003, martial law was declared in Aceh and all foreign journalists and aid workers were banned from the province. Journalists were forbidden from even speaking to GAM. The recent opening up of Aceh to international relief operations has provided a rare opportunity to find out what's been going on while the world has looked the other way.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM (Translation): They attacked us with all their war machinery, their huge fighting force, their warplanes and ships, their Scorpion tanks and so on. They also conducted brutal operations against the people. The slightest suspicion, such as giving a cigarette to a GAM member, could get you shot. Because they conducted such brutal operations, they banned the international community from coming to Aceh. They don't want them to come to Aceh to report what they see. Why don't they want them here? Because they don't want the world to witness their brutality.

The international community barely protested the isolation of Aceh and the all-out attacks by the Indonesian military. GAM wants to know why the world ignored Aceh's flight.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM (Translation): So why don't the international powers - like the US, France or China, use their veto power to pressure Indonesia? What is happening is that they're committing ethnic cleansing in Aceh. They kill civilians. Yet the international community keeps quiet. Now, because of the tsunami disaster, they come to Aceh. Why not during the first martial law?

Major General Bambang Darmono was in charge of implementing martial law. He is now responsible for the international tsunami relief effort.

REPORTER: As the former commander during the time of martial law, do you feel the operation was successful in reducing the activity of the separatists?

MAJOR GENERAL BAMBANG DARMONO: Yeah. I feel that of course. Not because I was the commander at the first military emergency status here, not because of that, but the reality, yeah, the reality, yeah. I think you can compare when you were here and met me in September 2002, I think you can compare the situation at that time and now. The situation right now is much, much happier with the people.

The TNI claims to have killed 3,000 GAM troops during martial law but, according to human rights groups and even the US State Department, most of those killed were not GAM but civilians. Commander Muharram says both the TNI and BRIMOB, paramilitary police units, still attack civilians on a daily basis despite the supposed cease-fire.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM (Translation): I just received information at about 7:00am today that BRIMOB trooped conducted operations in Manggra village in the Indrapuri district this morning. They arrested one civilian. When they entered the village they shot wildly into the air in all directions. That was this morning. Then they arrested Subhan, Subhan Nurdin, resident of Mureue Manggra village. He's 20 years old. He was arrested by BRIMOB this morning. This is evidence that TNI and the police are still conducting operations.

As the tropical rain beats down on their flimsy shelter, I realise that far from destroying GAM, martial law has driven more recruits to join the struggle.

NEW RECRUIT (Translation): I saw the Acehnese. There were so many of them killed raped, tortured and shot dead before our eyes. I want to take revenge. So that the people are no longer colonised by Indonesia.

Escorting me back to the coastal plain, the rebels send out a scout to make sure we can safely cross back into TNI-controlled territory. Outside of Banda Aceh, the army's clean-up of the tsunami has barely begun but these corpses wrapped in black plastic are evidence that the troops have been here. Dogs or thieves have ripped open the bodybags.
At the base of the mountains, the unburied dead are also a sign of how incredibly close the TNI is to the rebel hideout. Just a few kilometres from commander Muharram's camp, TNI troops are stationed next to the flattened remains of a base. 101 military personnel were killed here in the tsunami along with their wives and children.
Officially, the TNI maintains only 363 of its men were lost in the tsunami. But with most bases situated in coastal regions like this one, the real toll is sure to be much higher.
Thousands of extra troops have been rushed here to re-establish bases, assist with the clean-up and, according to the TNI, protect relief workers from attacks by GAM.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI (Translation): They are still harassing people and disrupting humanitarian operations and so on which means they will always come into conflict with our troops who are guarding humanitarian aid operations. That's when skirmishes occur.

The TNI claims it has killed more than 200 GAM fighters since the tsunami, in the course of its so-called defensive operations. Its spokesman claims the GAM fighters have been killed trying to disrupt the aid effort. But he's reluctant to provide evidence.

REPORTER: Have there been any attacks at all on humanitarian convoys or humanitarian supplies?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI (Translation): That was in Julok. In Julok, but they got away. Then in Bakongan and Trumon there were five...five GAM men died.

REPORTER: Can you give me the times and places when the humanitarian relief convoys were attacked?

Although the Lieutenant Colonel eventually supplied some additional information, international relief organisations contacted by Dateline reported no attacks on their personnel or convoys. I was unable to find a single media report that verified any of these incidents and GAM commanders deny any of the attacks occurred.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM (Translation): At first our side declared a cease-fire. We abided by the cease-fire. We stopped offensive actions right away. Detentions, we never kidnap, we have been clear on that but our enemies spread propaganda against us to blacken our reputation.

The relocation of the population into refugee camps since the tsunami has made it easier for the TNI to locate GAM suspects. Under martial law, the Indonesian military forced 41,000 people into camps away from GAM areas - an attempt to remove the rebels' support base. Now the tsunami has achieved the same result and the TNI is hunting GAM members in these camps.
Soldiers came to this refugee camp near the Banda Aceh port and shot this woman's teenage son, Dodi Surya Hasni Asiwan.

MOTHER (Translation): The incident was on Sunday at three o'clock. Yes, two weeks after the tsunami they shot my son. People told them, he's not GAM. He's still a student in third year of high school. He raised his hands saying, "I am not GAM, sir." So why did they shoot him? Here, here and twice here.

REPORTER: Did they search for GAM members?

MOTHER (Translation): GAM members? There were GAM members among the villagers. They'd come home to visit their families, but then my son was killed. Maybe someone told the TNI the GAM members were there. Then the TNI came.

The tsunami wiped out this woman's coastal village. It was her son who saved her from the natural disaster, only to be killed a fortnight later.

MOTHER (Translation): My son brought me up there when the tsunami came. He carried me on his back when it happened. I always remember him because he saved my life. But he was shot. How do you think I feel? I always think about him. I'm so scared. I'm out of my mind. My heart is beating so fast that I can't explain it.

Across the road from the camp, I asked these soldiers if there had been any problems with GAM in that area.

SOLDIER (Translation): Here... at the moment there are no incidents. There have been none since the tsunami.

REPORTER: There have been several cases in the press in the last three weeks in which GAM soldiers who have come down to their relatives after the tsunami have been killed by the TNI. What do you say to that? Do you think any GAM personnel who you see anywhere for whatever reason, whether they are armed or not, do you think it's your duty to kill them on the spot?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI (Translation): If they want to visit their families, see their families, that's fine. So long as they don't cause trouble because usually they come intending to cause trouble. They redirect supplies and take them back to their camps. This is what we... time and again, we've appealed to them. This is an opportunity to be open with each other. Let's resolve this problem in the best way possible. If they want to surrender, we'll treat them well.

Cease-fires in Aceh have never meant very much. The last cease-fire in 2003 collapsed after pro-Indonesian militias attacked foreign peace monitors, forcing them to withdraw. The Indonesians then demanded GAM renounce its goal of independence and declared martial law.
Just last week, a new peace process got under way in the Finnish capital, Helsinki. GAM announced it would no longer directly appeal for independence, but called instead for the demilitarisation of Aceh and a plan for self-government. This was designed to break the impasse created by Indonesia and its outright rejection of independence.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM(Translation): We very much hope that the dialogue is free from interference, a dialogue which is fairly mediated by international bodies that hopefully want to see the conflict in Aceh solved, like the cessation of hostilities, a cease-fire. This must be seriously implemented. If one side breaches the agreement, the international community through the UN should take action against the parties concerned who breached the peace agreement.

REPORTER: So this is where your father was held inside the jail?

OKI: Yeah, he was inside. Over there.

This man's father was one of the senior GAM negotiators during the last peace talks and should have been in Helsinki. But Sofyan Ibrahim Tiba had been sentenced to 15 years in jail after martial law was declared and was one of hundreds of prisoners caught inside this Banda Aceh jail when the tsunami struck.

OKI: The water is coming from behind this building and the people is running here, because this is the door where they can run.

According to Tiba's son, Oki, the guards were afraid of the prisoners escaping and kept the door locked. The stench and flies indicate that many bodies remain buried here.

OKI: I feel very sad, you know? My father is a negotiator and he is always an optimist that there will be more dialogue between GAM and RI - and Indonesia. This week, I heard that there is a dialogue between government and GAM, and I feel sad that my father not included anymore, he's not doing the negotiator because of the tsunami.

Under martial law, anyone who spoke out against the government was sentenced to prison for up to 15 years. Human rights activists and those who advocated free speech in a referendum for Aceh also died here.
With 230,000 dead or missing in Aceh from the tsunami, the Indonesian military has taken the lead role in coordinating the relief effort. The military promotes its version of the conflict to the international organisations that have arrived to assist. It uses the threat of GAM attacks to control where and when aid is delivered. Armed military guards escort all relief convoys and ensure foreign workers do not get close enough to GAM areas to see what is going on. It's a tactic used time and again by the Indonesian military in Aceh and East Timor to intimidate and restrict the foreign presence.
As the peace talks were progressing in Helsinki, the TNI released this footage of Army Chief of Staff Ryamizard Ryacudu supposedly firing at rebels. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, hardliners in the TNI continue to accuse GAM of threatening the aid effort.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL EDI SUSLIADI(Translation): It's the same now as it was before the tsunami. But what we deplore is they're taking advantage of the situation post-tsunami while the Acehnese are suffering the effects of the disaster. While the TNI and others in society are focused on helping the Acehnese hit by the disaster, how can they do such things?

It is the military's stated aim that the international attention given to the province following the tsunami will be as brief as possible. With most foreign troops now leaving, they seem to have succeeded and once relief workers and the media move on, the Acehnese will once again be at the mercy of the Indonesian military.

COMMANDER MUHARRAM(Translation): This time we hope that the international community, will look seriously at Aceh. After the tsunami hit Aceh, no more Acehnese people should live in poverty. They should be free from oppression, threat and terror from the government of Indonesia. But we don't really trust the Indonesian government, because what they say is different from what they do.

GEORGE NEGUS: John tells us that last Saturday that group of GAM fighters he was with were attacked again in the very camp where he filmed his report. For their part, the Indonesian military claim that GAM attacked a tsunami aid convoy killing a TNI soldier. The claims and counter-claims in Aceh continue.