JAKARTA: Indonesia yesterday blamed separatists in Aceh for burning more than 100 school buildings in the province as it claimed minor victories in its latest attempt to quell the 27-year-old rebellion by force.
Jakarta imposed martial law on the resource-rich province in the early hours of Monday after the collapse of last-ditch talks aimed at saving a five-month-old ceasefire with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
The Indonesian military claimed yesterday that it had killed five GAM members and captured seven more, despite what it described as GAM's efforts to "divert our attention" by burning 120 schools in the last two days.
GAM said none of its members had been killed or captured. It also denied burning schools.
"The steps that have been taken are moving troops to places known as GAM bases and chasing them into hideouts that have been set up," the government's military commander in Aceh, Maj Gen Endang Suwarya, said yesterday evening.
"We know where they are and we have anticipated their guerrilla tactics. The indicator of [the military's] success is to catch or kill them and confiscate their weaponry," he said.
According to analysts, both sides in Indonesia's biggest military operation since its 1975 invasion of East Timor are deeply tainted by long histories of killings, kidnappings and corruption.
But the recent war in Iraq is another clear influence.
Indonesia strenuously opposed the US-led invasion and says its violation of Iraq's sovereignty makes it much worse than anything Jakarta has planned against separatists.
It has also adopted the public-relations vernacular of the American military. The army has "embedded" local journalists and claims that GAM uses "human shields".
At a recent reception in Jakarta, a government aide said he hoped the operation against GAM would amount to a "surgical strike".
GAM has learned its lessons as well. Opposition to the Iraq war in Indonesia - as it was all over the Muslim world - was driven by civilian casualties. So Mr Abu Sofyan Daud, GAM's chief spokesman in Aceh, has spent the past two days accusing the military of killing civilians rather than rebels.
"Gam's real concern is with the civilians. We fight for them and they are on our side," he said yesterday.