Associated Press
January 22, 2004

BANDA ACEH: Indonesian authorities Thursday transferred 54 rebel prisoners from Aceh province to jails on the country's main island of Java to stop them fomenting separatism in their homeland.

Wearing blue uniforms and handcuffed to each other, the prisoners were escorted into an air force C-130 Hercules transport that flew them to Semarang, the capital of Central Java province.

The group were the first of 143 prisoners who will serve their sentences in jails across Java. Some will be incarcerated in a notorious penal colony on Nusakambangan island off Java's southern coast.

Authorities have said the move was necessary because the rebels were spreading separatist propaganda to Acehnese in jail in the province for ordinary crimes.

The military claims to have arrested 1,200 rebels since May, when Jakarta broke off peace talks and launched a major offensive to crush the insurgency on the northwestern tip of Sumatra island.

At least 1,300 people have been killed in the campaign. Human rights groups say most were unarmed villagers caught up in Indonesian army operations.

Rebels belonging to the Free Aceh Movement have been fighting for an independent homeland in the province since 1976.

Edited by Mary de Wet.