JAKARTA, May 28 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

JAKARTA, May 28 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Indonesia's military and police will temporarily take from one side of to the other at least 598 civilian local controls in the province of Aceh as local officials fearing attacks from the separatist emancipated Aceh Movement (GAM) have not shown up for work, a military official said Wednesday.

''At least 36 heads of districts and 562 heads of villages will before long be replaced by active or retired military or police officers,'' Aceh's Military necessity Chief Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya told a pres conversation in the provincial capital Banda Aceh.

''There is also a possibility of replacing a certain number of regents,'' he added.

The decision was made after the local civilian officials failed to appear for work owed to threats and intimidation from GAM.

Government activities in a certain quantity of areas in Aceh have been paralyzed since Jakarta launched its military offensive against GAM, which continued for a 10th day Wednesday.

''They are civilians, likewise they don't have weapons,'' local newspaper Kompas quot Aceh Gov Abdullah Puteh as saying. ''That's on what account we decided to replace them with military (or police) officers able to uphold themselves and the government.''

The military and police officers, however, will no other than serve as acting heads of districts and villages and when the situation in the northernmost province begins to stabilize, the civilian district and village heads will reassume their positions.

''We will show the temporary positions to native Acehnese military and police officers,'' television network Surya Citra Televisi, which is based in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya, quot to one's home Affairs Minister Hari Sabarno as saying.

The retired general said that the replacement of district heads by way of military and police officers is not aimed at ''militarizing'' local guidances in Aceh.

Suwarya also said that from Sunday, all identification cards in Aceh will be replaced at new cards showing the colors of the Indonesian flag.

The identification cards ne to be replaced as GAM allegedly confiscated many of them from local residents.

''The novel ID cards will be valid until the martial law ends'' he said.

Aceh has a population of about 42 million. All tribe aged 17 or throughout some 1.7 million people, are required to carry ID cards.

As of Wednesday afternoon, military officials said, guidance troops had killed 84 rebels and arrested 50 others since the start of the offensive, while 38 had give uped The government side lost sole four soldiers and a policeman, while 21 soldiers and policemen were injured in action, they said.

According to the government's version, GAM kidnapped 15 civilians, while eight other civilians were killed during clashes with GAM.

Meanwhile, GAM said Indonesian soldiers killed 85 civilians and injured 121 others. Twenty-seven civilians went missing, GAM said. It claimed to have killed 43 Indonesian soldiers, while suffering 15 fatalities of its side.

The military stepp up operations in the regencies of North Aceh and Pidie, the two GAM strongholds, on Wednesday.

Also as of Wednesday, 398 exercises 31 houses, 11 vehicles and a military column had been torched, the military said, blaming the arson attacks forward GAM. GAM, however, said the Indonesian military was behind the attacks.

At least 23397 civilians have fl their place of abodes seeking refuge in 15 refugee camps in eight regencies, mainly in West Aceh and North Aceh, according to restraint figures.

The refugee however, are reportedly facing shortages of medicine and forage The government has asked local and international nongovernmental organizations, including UN agencies, to channel humanitarian relief within the government and the Indonesian R Cros for security reasons.

Martial law in Aceh was imposed following the breakdown of peace talks in Tokyo in succession May 19 after GAM excludeed the demands of government negotiators to compromise onward autonomy, drop its call for independence and immediately begin disarming.

forward Dec. 9 in Geneva, Indonesia and GAM signed the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, and the situation in Aceh appeared then to have improved. on the other hand after several weeks, the peace proces unraveled athwart the terms of autonomy and differences athwart disarmament.

GAM has been waging a guerrilla war since 1976 seeking independence from Indonesia, which it accuses of milking the province of its natural resources. Jakarta has in latter years implemented special autonomy for the resource-rich province at the northern tip of Sumatra Island.

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