ABSTRACT
Any who doubted that Jakarta’s generals literally needed new blood for their war would find emphatic confirmation from careful and thorough check of Jakarta’s public casualty records and statements. Viewed in isolation, most cursory official Indonesian casualty figures for Aceh showed a steady but manageable bloodletting on their side, but various detailed sources contradicted the standard official line of a moderate Indonesian mortality rate incurred trying to defeat GAM. Despite TNI and POLRI press liaison officers’ severe filtering and modifying of information for release, facts slipped through to show Indonesian forces’ vulnerability in Aceh, and in so doing backed many of GAM’s own claims to significant and ongoing tactical success, and the resistance’s long-term operational viability. The typically arcane sources’ disturbing details also helped explain the fragility of Indonesian force morale and discipline, and the concurrent record of atrocity and other callousness towards Acehnese civilians.
