Confusion as Banda Aceh guerillas call ceasefire

JUSTICE is swift in Banda Aceh or so a story doing the rounds in the northern Indonesian city suggests.

It goes that a suspected thief caught by police (or soldiers, the story varies) apparently looting a tsunami-damaged premises was promptly tied to a nearby corpse until he begged for mercy.

Urban myth it may be but the fact that people readily believe it says much about the behaviour expected and accepted of security forces in the Aceh province where almost three decades of separatist agitation, guerilla warfare and martial law have given uniforms an authority not to be questioned.