while being detained in Indonesia.

Scottish academic Lesley McCulloch and her American friend Joy Sadler go on trial today after spending most of the past 11 weeks in a 15-foot square room with no external windows.

Accused of violating their tourist visas, they said yesterday that they will not contest the charges. They are expected to be released within the week.

Lesley McCulloch, 40, from Dunoon in Argyll, and Joy Sadler, 57, from Iowa, speaking exclusively to the Guardian from their prison cell, accept that they did not have clearance to be researching the 26-year-long separatist conflict in the province on the northern tip of Sumatra and its effects on the local population when soldiers arrested them on September 10.

Ms McCulloch announced their strategy in a two-hour clandestine meeting she and Ms Sadler held with the Guardian yesterday in their cell at the Aceh police headquarters, their first in-depth interview since being arrested.

Both women and their lawyer are convinced that the main reason the process has dragged on for so long is because the army and intelligence agencies are enraged by Ms McCulloch's research papers on Aceh, particularly about the military's alleged myriad illegal businesses in the province.

"The level of pure hate towards Lesley has been so great," Ms Sadler said. "I was really honest to God afraid they would take her out. I've never seen such hate." At the beginning of their ordeal they were kept round the clock in the sparsely furnished cell. Ms McCulloch has a back condition.

"We just had to stay in here," Ms McCulloch said. "But then I couldn't walk and ended up in the emergency department of the hospital. The doctor told the commander we had to be allowed to walk and we had to have mattresses -- which we didn't have -- and chairs." But they say their treatment has been luxurious compared with the regular severe beatings suffered by other inmates, which the women claimed often keep them awake at night.

"Sometimes the torture sessions would go on for half an hour and sometimes an hour," Ms McCulloch alleged. "Then they might take the prisoner back to the cells for a bit and then they would drag him out again.

"Once Joy went to help a guy who had been beaten and when she came back I asked her if he was afraid but she said he was in such a terrible state she was unable to notice any emotions." Ms Sadler has refused to leave Ms McCulloch, even when her health started to deteriorate rapidly due to her catching illnesses related to her HIV-positive condition.

The American nurse has since received medicines flown in from her doctor in the US.

Ms McCulloch said she is hugely indebted to her fellow prisoner. "Joy's been my buffer zone," she said. "From early on they wanted to process her case quickly and get her out of here but she insisted that her case remained linked to mine and the lawyers said she has been my protection." One of the ways the women said Ms Sadler was able to ingratiate herself with the chief detective, senior commander Surya Dharma, was by tending to his officers when they fell sick and allegedly helping to patch up local detainees after they had been tortured to extract confessions. "They call me Mother Teresa," Ms Sadler said.

The picture the women paint of life in detention is a combination of regular harassment and intimidation towards them interspersed with moments of genuine kindness and incomprehensible idiosyncrasies. One of the regular latter acts is the vase of scented fake flowers the women are given every month even though the officers do not have the budget to buy the paper and ink needed to take their statements.

'The army have abused her, the police sexually harassed her'
The Guardian - November 25, 2002

For Lesley McCulloch, the story of Aceh is a forgotten tragedy. The British academic is one of the world's leading authorities on the remote Indonesian province, blighted for decades by a bloody civil conflict. Thousands have died since fighting erupted in the 1970s when separatist rebels launched a campaign for independence and the military responded with a brutal crackdown. Beyond Indonesia's troubled hinterlands, however, Aceh has made few headlines.

McCulloch, 40, a lecturer in the faculty of Asian languages and studies at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, often travelled to Aceh, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra, for research, cataloguing alleged human rights abuses. She has written extensively on the subject and has spoken before the UN on the plight of the Acehenese people.

She was so passionate about the place that when she had time off between jobs this autumn she chose to visit the province and spend time with friends. She had just turned down a job at the Pentagon to concentrate on her post as principal researcher on the Internal Conflicts in Asia Project being conducted by the East-West Centre for international relations in Honolulu.

She packed the summer dresses her mother had bought her for her 40th birthday and talked of travelling around and doing nothing much. But days after she arrived, on September 10, McCulloch and her companion, Joy Lee Sadler, a 57-year-old American nurse, were hauled off a bus by an Indonesian army patrol in south Aceh and thrown into jail. The authorities say the women had violated their tourist visa regulations by contacting rebels during the trip, an offence punishable by up to five years in jail. The proof, they said, was documents and a video relating to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) which were allegedly found in McCulloch's bag. The women vehemently deny the accusations.

In the first few days after their arrest they were allegedly denied proper access to diplomats, lawyers or even a phone, and were assaulted, threatened, sexually harassed and deprived of sleep. In snatched conversations and messages relayed to family and journalists, McCulloch accused the authorities of a catalogue of abuses and a "slanderous attack" on her integrity and character by claiming she had covered up previous involvement in the region when seeking her entry visa. McCulloch has insisted she was in possession of a research visa but had not used it for her trip because she was on holiday and not working.

"Held seven nights, denied right of contact with embassy, abused by army, knife held at my throat by army, not allowed to make report re two points above, sleep deprivation, denied medical assistance, intimidation, sexual harassment by police, they tried to force us to sign false statements, lack of translator," she wrote in one smuggled note.

The women were eventually moved to an unlocked cell in a police facility in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, where they will go on trial today, on the visa violation charge. In Australia, McCulloch's arrest has been raised in the senate and a fundraising campaign launched to pay for legal fees. In the UK, her plight has been virtually ignored.

At her home in Dunoon, in Argyll, Mattie McCulloch only learned of her daughter's arrest when an Australian friend phoned. "It was all over the news there, on the hour, every hour," Mattie says. "We contacted the Foreign Office and they said they were aware of the situation and were monitoring it. But no one told us. I remember I lay awake all night. I thought, no one is going to do anything.

"She had come to see us in Scotland just before she went and we had a lovely time. I had bought her all these bits and pieces for her birthday, the little slip dresses the young people like, she said they were ideal because she was going to have at least 10 days on a beach." The McCullochs say they have felt abandoned by the UK government. They say the Indonesian guards have made fun of their daughter because she has so few visits from British officials while Joy Sadler has been lavished with attention by US diplomatic personnel. "The soldiers taunt her because the American girl is being better looked after. 'When are the British coming?' they laugh at her," says Mattie. The Foreign Office says the honorary consul in Medan is in weekly contact with McCulloch and that her case has been raised by senior UK and European officials, including Lord Chancellor's office minister Baroness Scotland, foreign office minister Baroness Amos and the EU commissioner, Chris Patten. An official from the British Embassy in Jakarta will be with McCulloch for the trial.

"We are fully aware of Lesley's situation and we take it very seriously," says a Foreign Office spokeswoman. "We can't interfere with the legal process of another country. We are there to ensure that she has full legal assistance and she is being treated in a fair way." The McCullochs, meanwhile, fear Lesley's previous work on Aceh is being used by the authorities to make her a scapegoat. Friends and colleagues say she has witnessed much during her trips there and her outspokenness has made her an obvious target. Some have said they fear for her life.

"What they have been trying to do, the police, the army, they are trying to get more information on her," says Mattie. "They wanted a charge of espionage. They have not found anything. The lawyer said the police file on her is growing bigger by the minute. She has written a lot about conditions there. She is so passionate about her work. She loves that country and the people." Her worst "crime", the family says, may have been helping Joy Lee Sadler hand out first-aid supplies to villagers near where they were picked up. There had been fighting in the area and they had come across some people who were injured.

McCulloch has a badly slipped disc and is said to be in terrible pain. "A missionary visited and was so appalled at the conditions they were in that she went straight to the commandant and protested," says Mattie. "They suffered after she went." The McCullochs' first reaction had been to travel to Indonesia to try and see her daughter but they were advised against it, particularly following the Bali bomb blast. Mattie believes she can do more here, keeping up the pressure on the government. News that the trial is going ahead has brought some relief from the uncertainty.

It is hoped the women will simply be reprimanded or fined and told to leave the country if they are found guilty by the court. But a jail sentence cannot be ruled out. "We don't know what the outcome will be," says Mattie.

Six killed in Aceh
Jakarta Post - November 25, 2002

Jakarta -- Six people including four alleged members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have been shot dead in Aceh despite an expected peace deal, AFP reported.

Troops shot dead the four members during a 15-minute firefight at Seuneubok Teungah in West Aceh on Sunday afternoon, said Aceh military spokesman Maj. Edi Fernandi. No soldiers were hurt and two AK-47 rifles were seized from the victims, he said.

About five GAM members ambushed a patrol of six soldiers on Sunday and wounded one of them at Bandar Masin, on the outskirts of Lhokseumawe town, he said.

Residents said one civilian was killed by stray bullets and one woman wounded. Local GAM spokesman Tengku Jamaica denied that the ambush was carried out by his men.

"The shooting took place between TNI [Indonesian armed forces] members and Brimob [paramilitary police] members," Jamaica said.

Meanwhile gunmen wearing military fatigues killed a village chief near the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Sunday, residents said. They said five gunmen beached a boat near the chief's hut, shooting him dead and setting fire both to his hut and to others nearby. The chief's body has not been found.

An estimated 10,000 people have died in the province since the start of GAM's struggle for an independent state in 1976.

Planned Tokyo meeting on Aceh hailed as good step
Jakarta Post - November 25, 2002

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- Acehnese politician Gazhali Abbas and human rights campaigner Munir have welcomed a planned meeting between the government, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and donor countries in Tokyo next month, but warned that security and human rights issues must be addressed before the province can be rebuilt.

They also urged Japan and the United States, the sponsors of the Tokyo meeting, to set up an independent committee to channel assistance funds to the province, where GAM has been fighting for independence since 1976.

"I welcome the concerns of these foreign countries in settling the Aceh question, as we all know that many schools and houses have been damaged in the armed conflict between the Indonesian government and GAM.

"Nevertheless, I don't expect aid to bring more suffering to the Acehnese. So, I suggest that Japan and the US set up an independent team consisting of individuals with high personal integrity to monitor the funds and to make sure that people in Aceh receive it directly," Gazhali told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Munir, co-founder of the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said rebuilding, finding a political solution to the conflict and investigating rights abuses should take place simultaneously.

"The root cause of the prolonged conflict in Aceh is a political conflict between the government and GAM, and a distrust among the Acehnese to the policies the central government has introduced," Munir said.

"As long as all parties fail to find a solution to these problems, I don't think any other steps will benefit the province," Munir said over the weekend.

Japan and the US plan to organize a meeting between GAM, the Indonesian government and donor countries in Tokyo on December 3. The meeting will discuss possible financial aid for Aceh and rebuilding the province once a peace accord between GAM and Jakarta is signed.

Facilitated by Swiss-based non-governmental organization Henry Dunant Centre (HDC), the government and GAM have held a series of talks on a peace accord for Aceh. Barring the unexpected, the two parties are to sign a peace agreement on December 9.

Gazhali expressed concern any financial aid for Aceh would wind up in the military's pockets if Japan and the US did not set up an independent committee to channel the funds. And Munir said the question of human rights abuses had to be dealt with.

From 1989 to 1998, Aceh was designated a special military operations area (DOM). During this period thousands of people were killed, tortured and raped by the security forces, and many more simply disappeared. And the killings, disappearances, rapes and torture were not confined to the DOM era, and they continue today.

Highlighting the government's security approach to Aceh, President Megawati Soekarnoputri reinstated in 2002 the Iskandar Muda Military Command overseeing the province.

Three ExxonMobil workers released in Aceh
Radio Australia - November 24, 2002

Indonesian police say three workers of US oil and gas giant ExxonMobil who had been abducted in Aceh province have been freed.

An Aceh police spokesman said the hostages were unharmed and probably with their families by now. Police were still investigating the details of their release and whether any ransom had been paid.

The workers were abducted on Thursday on their way home from work. Police blamed the abduction on Aceh separatist rebels.

The incident comes before the expected signing of a peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the rebels on December 9.

16 protesters held, 500 flee over plan to reopen pulp plant
Agence France Presse - November 24, 2002

Sixteen protestors are under arrest and around 500 have fled a town in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra amid controversial plans to reopen a polluting pulp plant, police and a human rights lawyer said.

Police arrested 21 people and are still holding 16 after a protest on Thursday against the reopening of the plant, which was closed in 1999 following years of often violent protests that it was damaging the environment.

"There are still 16 people detained and two others have already been released," a duty officer of the North Tapanuli district police force in Tarutung, North Sumatra, said on Sunday.

The policeman, who identified himself only as Barus, said the men were arrested following a protest in front of the Porsea sub- district administration on Thursday which lead to the office being damaged. He declined to give more details.

Lawyer and human rights activist Johnson Panjaitan said hundreds of people had fled Porsea for the district town of Tarutung because the police, backed by the elite Brimob unit and soldiers, were terrorizing locals who oppose the reopening.

"What is taking place in Porsea smacks of the New Order [former president Suharto's rule] with state terrorism returning to the stage," Panjaitan, of the Jakarta-based Indonesian Association for Legal Aid and Human Rights, told AFP.

The protest on Thursday followed news that the government wanted to reopen PT Inti Indorayon (IIU), closed down in 1999 following increasingly violent protests, under a new name, PT Toba Lestari Indah. IIU was closed down after years of protest and violence, often deadly, with the local population accusing the plant of damaging the environment.

"The people of Porsea have already suffered for more than 10 years from the pollution caused by IIU. Now that they are just begining to enjoy a pollution-free environment, the central government is planning to end all that again," said the lawyer.

He told AFP by telephone from Medan that 21 protesters arrested face charges of incitement to violence, damaging property and disturbing public order.

Panjaitan had visited Porsea for a few days before going to Medan. The police, he said, had also guarded places of worship in Porsea which had been gathering points for locals when problems arose.

"At the local level, we will form a crisis center and provide help for the refugees, including setting up soup kitchens," Panjaitan said.

He said lawyers and rights activists in Jakarta will compile a report on the incident to alert the authorities, including President Megawati Sukarnoputri.