Aceh violence continues ahead of Megawati visit

The murder is the latest in a series of shootings to hit the restive province

By Amy Chew in Jakarta

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The head of the top university in Indonesia's rebellious province of Aceh was shot dead Thursday by unidentified gunmen two days before a scheduled visit to the province by President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Professor Dayan Dawood, rector of the prestigious Syiah Kuala University, was killed on his way home from work in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, police said.

"Professor Dawood was on his way home in car driven by his driver when he was shot twice by two men on a motorbike," Banda Aceh's police spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Sad Harun, told CNN.

Professor Dawood was a leading Acehnese intellectual who opposed violence and believed in forging peace through reconciliation between the separatist Free Aceh movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government.

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Free Aceh has been waging an armed insurgency against the central government since 1976.

Harun said the killing was intended by certain "armed groups" to create an "unconducive" situation for Megawati's first visit as president.

"This is aimed at disrupting the arrival of the president so that her visit will be perceived as a failure, that it will be viewed that the president cannot handle Aceh," he said.

Megawati's one-day visit on September 8 is part of her efforts to resolve years of bloodshed in the province but many are pessimistic about its prospects.

Restive province

Resource-rich Aceh has grown restive after years of seeing its natural resources siphoned off to Jakarta while receiving little in return.

Dawood's murder is another in a long list of killings of leading Acehnese figures in the past few weeks.

Last weekend, a local legislator, Zaini Sulaiman, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen outside his house.

More than 1,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the province in the first eight months of this year.

GAM denied it was behind Dawood's murder, saying they also felt sad that the province had lost one of its leading intellectuals.

"We had nothing to do with it," Gam spokesman, Ayah Sofyan, told CNN.

Sofyan accused military intelligence of being behind the murder as Dawood was known for being highly anti-militaristic.

"Professor Dawood was a man who was very loyal to democracy and he was very anti-militaristic. There are indications he was shot by the military intelligence," he said.

He added that military intelligence wanted to create an "unsafe" situation in the Aceh so that President Megawati would not draw back on current military operations in the province.

"They (intelligence) want to create the impression that Aceh is not safe so that Megawati would not revoke the military operations," said Sofyan.