Aceh rebels reject Megawati role

LHOKSEUMAWE, Indonesia -- Rebels in Indonesia's battered Aceh province say they cannot work with new President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

They insist on foreign intervention to help end bloodshed that has claimed 1,500 victims, mostly civilians, since January.

The Free Aceh Movement's (GAM) deputy military commander, Sofyan Daud, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday at a secret location that the rebels did not trust the daughter of Indonesia's founding father, Sukarno.

Ending a long-running rebellion is one of Megawati's toughest and most urgent tasks.

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"The policies of Megawati and her father only harm the people of Aceh and bear no fruit," said Daud, a pistol tucked into his jeans.

He was surrounded by dozens of fighters carrying guns, some home-made, and rocket launchers.

"We will have no relations with Megawati."

But Daud said GAM would press ahead with so far fruitless peace talks with the Indonesian government -- due to resume in September -- despite Megawati's rise to power last month and the arrest of the rebels' chief peace negotiator.

He demanded international monitors to police any future ceasefire after the failure of previous agreements.

Lhokseumawe lies to the east of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Masked gunmen kidnapped and killed two villagers and a gunbattle between security forces and rebels left a soldier and a guerrilla dead in the latest violence in Aceh province, witnesses and officials said Saturday.

In Jakarta, The Associated Press reported that state-sponsored National Commission on Human Rights official Asmara Nababan said the organization would send a team to Aceh to investigate a recent massacre of 31 civilians.

Gunmen shot the victims earlier this month on a palm-oil plantation in eastern Aceh.

Government forces blamed the rebels for the slaughter and say they have launched their own investigation.

But the rebels have denied responsibility and accused the security forces of killing the civilians in retaliation for a guerrilla attack on a security post in the area, which left several soldiers dead.

In the latest violence in the region, unidentified gunmen kidnapped two civilians from Di Blang Pidie village, in southern Aceh, on Friday.

Bullet wounds

Their bodies were found with bullet wounds early Saturday, witnesses said.

A soldier and a rebel were also killed in a gunbattle in eastern Aceh on Friday, police said.

The bloodshed came only two days after authorities unearthed a mass grave containing the bodies of 48 civilians in western Aceh.

Both the security forces and the rebel Free Aceh Movement accused each other of being responsible for the killings.

Some 6,000 people have died in the conflict in Aceh, about 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) northwest of Jakarta, during the past decade.