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Violence escalates prior to elections in Indonesia's Aceh

04 April 2014 18:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh saw increasing violence during campaign period for parliamentary election scheduled on April 9, claiming lives of civilians, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The latest deadly violence occurred on Monday, killing three people in a van used in the campaign of a local Aceh Party in the city of Bireun. Police said that the violence was perpetrated by armed people who had been tailing the van packed by 12 party supporters.

The perpetrators shot their guns through the van windows, killed a man, a woman and a 1.5 year-old infant onboard the van. Another man inside the van was severely injured in the incident.

"The rampant violence in Aceh was very concerning, but we are determined to make the election conducted peacefully here," Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah said in the province's capital Banda Aceh on Friday as quoted by a local media.

He expected the security apparatus to continue improving their measures to secure the condition among the public with persuasive manner during the campaign period scheduled to end on Saturday.

He also called on supporters of political parties taking part in the elections to maintain situation conducive towards the elections.

Responding to the rampant violence in Aceh, Indonesian Military Commander General Moeldoko said on Friday that they were spontaneous acts as the military did not find previous signals related to it.

"We implement intelligence and territorial operation to secure the condition. But why it (violence) still emerges? We learned that it all conducted spontaneously," Moeldoko said here.

Coalition of Aceh civil society revealed on Thursday that 38 violations related to elections were recorded from April 2013 to March 2014. It said that 21 of the violations were violence acts and the remaining 17 ones were legal violence related to elections.

The high violation rate related to the elections in the province this year was related to ignorance and snail-drag handling of apparatus to respond similar cases occurred in 2009 elections and 2012 regional election, the coalition said.

The rampant violence that cost human lives showed that security remain a crucial issue in the gas-rich province of Aceh that saw 30 years of insurgency movement, claimed at least 25,000 lives.

Helsinki peace accord signed by Indonesian and Aceh insurgent leader in 2005 ended the movement, made Aceh remained in Indonesia 's territory. It is now governed under special autonomy status based on Islamic law.

Indonesian General Election Commission (KPU) has endorsed 12 national parties and 3 local parties in Aceh eligible to contest in the upcoming elections.