Tuesday, May 09, 2006

RUMOH GEUDONG: THE TORTURE CAMP

The District of Pidie was well-known in Aceh for its agricultural abundance. This 4, 160.55 square km area is comprised of district (wilayah pembantu bupati), 23 sub-district (kecamatan), 127 residential areas (pemukiman) and 948 villages (desa/kelurahan) with Tangse and Geupang sub-district in the highland and the rest in the lowland. Situated between 4.39-4.60 degrees of north latitude and 95.75-96.20 of east longitude, Pidie is bordered by the Mallaca straits in the north, Aceh Tengah district in the south and Aceh Besar district in the west.

The 1995 statistics showed that this area contributed the biggest share of 47.06 per cent Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP). In short, Pidie was the rice bowl of Aceh. This however did not reflect in the economic outlook of the area. More that 50 per cent of the villages in Pidie were considered as deprived ones, menaing that 590 villages from 948 villages were categorized as underprivileged according to the official Presidential Decree. This irony was due to the prolong conflict occurred under the endorsement of DOM status. Not only were the Aceh people marginalized economically, they also lived their life in continuous terror.

One of many sources of terror to the people in Aceh was Rumoh Geudong. Rumoh Geudong was located in Billie Aron village in Geulumpang Tiga sub-district, around 125 km away from the city of Banda Aceh. Rumoh Geudong was built in 1818 by ampon Raja Lamkuta, the son of an Acehnese royal soldier. During the Dutch colonialism, King Lamkuta and his associates used the house as a place to prepare their strategies. Later on King Lamkuta was shot dead by the Dutch military police surrounded his place in Pulo Syahi, Keumala. He was buried in the royal cemetery in Aron Village nearby Rumoh Geudong. His 15-year old brother Teuku cut Ahmad continued the struggle but got shot by the Dutch troops as well. Later on, Rumoh Geudong was consecutively occupied by Teuku Kejreun Rahman, Teuku Kejreum Husein and Teuku Kejreun Gade. During the Japanese occupation until the independence of Indonesia in 1945, the son of Teuku Kejreun Husein, Teuku Raja Umar (known as Kejreun Umar) and his son Teuku Muhammad resided in Rumoh Geudong is in the hand of Cut Maidawati, the daughter of Teuku A. Rahman who inherented the house from his father, Teuku Ahmad or Ampon Muda, the son of Teuku Kejreun Gade.

Situated in the middle of a 150 x 80 square meter land near the main road connecting the cities of Banda Aceh in Aceh and Medan in North Sumatera province, Rumoh Geudong looked like any ordinary Aceh traditional houses. It was equipped with verandah, kitchen and a number of rooms in the front, central and back sides of the houses. Under its latest renovation, the top made of palm leaves was changed with an iron roof. The decayed wooden walls were replaced with the new carved ones. They built an additional room at the back side and a hall at the front. Every ‘bara’ (pillar of Aceh traditional houses) of Rumoh Geudong was carved with verses from one ‘juz’ (chapter) for the Holy Quran.

Since April 1990, Rumoh Geudong was transformed into a military post. According to the owner of Rumoh Geudong, the military officers occupied the houses without permission. They resided in Rumoh Geudong simply by insisting to the houses guard that they wanted to do so. The owner disagreed nevertheless the Kopassus officers continued to stay there. The officers changed the house into military post, put partitions in Rumoh Geudong and turned the house as the prison in the end of 1995. In 1996, the sub-district chief (Musyawarah Pimpinan Kecamatan/Muspika) issued a signed official letter requesting for temporary rent. However the owner of the houses never signed the paper. Since then, Rumoh Geudongwere known as Billie Aron Pos Sattis, covering three military regions in the sub-districts of Pidie: Glumpang Tiga, Kembang Tanjong and Bandar Baru sub-district.

The front and the middle rooms were divided with wooden and bamboo partitions and transformed into a number of 2 x 2 meter cells to accommodate the detainees for further interrogation an torture sessions. Cemented bricks made half of the wall at the back room and also the floor. The rooms were used as the office Rumoh Geudong chief, bedrooms for personnel, cells, torture rooms and kitchen. At the left side of backyard, a 1.5-meter deep septic tank was used as torture poles for the detainees. Here in Rumoh Geudong, various human rights violations such as kidnapping, rape, and robbery were committed during military operation under the authority of the chief of Billie Aron area.

When the DOM status was withdrawn on August 7, 1998, eight different chiefs from the Special Forces of the Armed Forces (Kopassus) unit were in charged of Rumoh Geudong, chiefs commanders of Rumoh Geudong were Hartono, Cecep, Dadang, Lieutenant II Sugiono, Lieutenant II Umar, Lieutenant I Partono from Battalion IV 42 Kopassus in Cijantung (the most sadistic commander), Lieutenant I Infantry Sutarman and Cakra. This chief, usually a second rank lieutenant from the infantry, headed a unit of 6 to 10 personnel of junior sergeants, senior sergeants, first rank soldier (Prajurit Satu/Pratu) and chief soldiers (Prajurit Kepala/Praka). It was difficult to identify military officers assigned in Rumoh Geudong since they rarely wore uniforms. Some even looked more like bandits with long hairs and earrings. Some victims were able to recall some of the perpetrators such as Sasmito (top assistant to Commander Sutarman, Umar and Partono), Prapat (a Bataknese), Nasrul, Arman (a Chinese-like young man with long hair), Joni, Faisal, Mirsal, Hartono, Rahmad, Sutrisno, Pranut, Joko and Adi. The officers would frequently recruited youths such as Bakar and Basri as assistances to torture and execute their own neighbors. One villager said, “People were scared of the officers and those 10-15 year-old delinquent juveniles. They drank, hanged around and play domino together. We loaded them all”.

The military, including those posted in Billie Aron Pos Sattis or Rumoh Geudong were involved in this unbroken vicious circle of physical, psychological and economic violence. Banning the mountainous part of Pidie from civilians and declaring it as target area for military action, the officers in Rumoh Geudong stole livestock of the Aceh people such as goats and buffaloes which were left roaming for grass in the pasture in the valley and the forest nearby. During the harvest period, the military also banned the Aceh people to the fields by declaring the areas as military regions. Quickly they turned the fields into stretches of bare grounds and pocketed the profit. Slowly the Aceh people lost all of their hard-earning crops and cattles and were left empty handed.

Sometimes the officers including the cuaks (mata-mata) from Rumoh Geudong ordered the villagers to clear the roads from twigs and branches. As a result, the officers enjoyed clear passable roads for their trucks and pockets full of money earned by selling all firewood’s to the local market. They also asked the villagers for rice, sugar, chicken, money and palm leaves for Rumoh Geudong’s new roof. They also ordered villagers, including 13-17 year-old boys and girls, to do the cooking, wash the dishes and clothes, mow the lawn, feed the detainees, chop the firewood’s and so on. The villagers was instructed to dig for sewers, clear new paths and set up security posts. Those who refused were accused as supporters of GAM and the ones who made mistakes received severe sanctions. The military also ordered 12 people from the neighboring villages to secure Rumoh Geudong every evening to ensure no detainees escaped from the house. Divided into two groups, the villagers started to take turns in their rounds at 7 in the evening and finished at 7 in the next morning. One villagers admitted that, “Sometimes we were tired and fell asleep. Then suddenly some officers popped out. Then they beats us up. Some of us were immediately dragged into Rumoh Geudong. We were in constant fear at the time”. If some detainees managed to flee, these villagers were punished heavily. So some villagers tried to pass up their turns to guard Rumoh Geudong at night by paying substitutes for Rp. 15.000. Some avoided this task for personal reason, a former detainee said, “My neighbors often substituted for me because my father was detained in Rumoh Geudong. I couldn’t bear seeing him being tortured in front of my very own eyes”.

Even talking to the officers caused them great fear. Minor mistakes would lead into major sufferance’s, whether they were physical or mental abuses or loss of property. “We didn’t have the courage to talk to the officers, we were too nervous. We might say wrong things, even just one sentence,” said one victim. A villager shared his experience, “One day, Tengku Hasballah was looking for his goat nearby Rumoh Geudong. When he was there, the officers called him out of the blue and asked him to take off his watch. Rumoh Geudong was risky even to bystanders”. All were done under the slogan of “ABRI Masuk Desa” (military village development program).

Moreover, when the Kopassus officers were transferred to different areas due to their tour of duty, the villagers were instructed to organize farewell parties and invite notable figures such as village chiefs, local businessmen and other public authorities to donate their money. The officers were no more than thieves or robbers in the eyes of the Aceh people. However the trauma from the torture in Rumoh Geudong was tremendous so they were unable to fight back or report wrongdoings to the higher authority. Powerless, they could only suffer in silence. One of the victims testified, “Hearing the word “Rumoh Geudong” was enough to make me shiver in fear. I simply couldn’t describe the hatred I felt inside. Here we call it as ‘hell of the world’ (neuraka donya), ‘the torture camp for the Aceh people’ or ‘the place of the evil Pa’i (the Armed Forces or the National Police)’.

The fear casted by Rumoh Geudong affected the daily routines as well. According to a villager, before it was transformed inti a Pos Sattis, the people used to paid friendly visits to their neighbours, “…but things were not the same anymore. Children could no longer return home after attending their Quran learning classes in the evening because they were too scared. So they had to stay over and returned in the next morning. When our neighbours passed away or organized gatherings, it was difficult for us to attend those kind of social meetings. “The villagers chose to take different routes away from Rumoh Geudong to avoid the officers. “When officers were nearby, we prefer to keep our distance. If necessary, we would run away as far as we could,” said a villager.

Living nearby Rumoh Geudong also exposed the villagers to horrendous experience. Cries for mercy, screams in pain and hurtful groans leaked from the walls of Rumoh Geudong at night. To suppress the creeping noise, the officers in charge raised the volume from the tape recorder. Many villagers could not stand such psychological pressure and chose to move to different places. One villagers testified, “The neighbouring villagers were heavily depressed and suffered sleep deprivation. They became as skinny as the detainees of Rumoh Geudong. The feeling of listening to the sound of suffering was indescribable”.

Later on Rumoh Geudong was also well-known as a haunted house. The military personnel frequently witnessed the presence of a mysterious tiger. According to the local legend, this tiger emerged from bloody sheet in the coffin that used to be in Rumoh Geudong. The coffin belonged to an old woman who was brutally murdered by the Dutch soldiers. Some non-Moslem officers were strangely ‘moved’ downstairs from their room upstairs. In 1992, an officer shot his own colleague because he heard the voice of the tiger telling him to do so. Only after the officers asked a famous local Moslem cleric Abu Kuta Krueng to exorcise the spirits, then they occupied Rumoh Geudong.

When the Reform Era took place on August 21, 1998, the government lifted the DOM status on Aceh. The military authorities started to leave Rumoh Geudong and other Pos Sattis and headed to the city of Lhokseumawe. They left around Rp. 6 million of unpaid phone bills to the relatives of Rumoh Geudong owner. He officer in charge simply suggested the owner not to pay the bill, “Let the telephone company cut the line off. Just install the new one, it would cost you only Rp. 300.000. According to the Human Rights Fact Finding Team report, 50 per cent of the crimes done by the military officers assigned in Pidie during the DOM status took place in Rumoh Geudong. Since 1990 to 1998, thousands of people have been tortured in this house.

When the National Commission of Human Rights investigated Rumoh Geudong, they found electric cables scattered on the wooden floor along with ropes and chains hanging down the ceiling. They also came across 1 70 cm wooden pole assumed as one of the torture instruments. Blood were splattered on the walls. They also found 150 x 180 square meter of mass graveyard nearby Rumoh Geudong. No complete skeleton found though, there were only remains of human fingers, hands, feet and other body parts such as human hair. Some victims and witnesses observed that a number of military officers had ordered several detainees and villagers to clean the graveyard in the evening and put the bodies into the car to be brought to an unknown place. Those remains invoked the suppressed hatred of the people. Thirty minutes after the Head of the National Commission of Human Rights Baharuddin Lopa left Rumoh Geudong, the villagers burned down the house. This was considered as an extraordinary occurrence to the villagers. According to the local legend, in 1945 a group of people tried to burn down Rumoh Geudong but failed because three mysterious tigers came out from this house and attacked them. The owner, Teuku Djakfar Ahmad, interpreted this incident in his own way and said, “Perhaps the house itself requested to be destroyed so the flame would rinse all the memories of the unimagined cruelty which took place here in Rumoh Geudong.”

As the flames engulfed Rumoh Geudong, the neighbouring villagers bursted in tears and thanked God. One of them said, “We thanked God for this. We could not stand the cries and screams anymore from the Rumoh Geudong.” Another victims wished, “The responsible ones must be brought to justice.” One Acehnese said, “I wish we could hang the perpetrators in public places.” Another mentioned, “Nothing would heal us unless we could see them in court and received appropriate punishment.”


Rumoh Geudong; The Scar of The Acehnese, Dyah Rahmany, Cordova-2001

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