Indonesian Death Toll Rises

Hundreds of Indonesian troops are patrolling a northern town where security forces killed at least 38 demonstrators, witnesses said.

Indonesian military commander Gen. Wiranto said he regretted the incident but the military described the shootings as self-defense.

The violence on Monday was the latest to hit the restive province of Aceh, a resource-rich and staunchly Islamic region at the northern tip of Sumatra which has a long tradition of battling Jakarta rule.

Doctors had said 23 people died, but a member of a fact-finding team set up by the local government said many others died but had not been taken to hospitals.

"We can confirm that at least 38 people died in the shootings on Monday," said Basri Gani, member of a team that has been investigating military atrocities in Aceh. The team includes community leaders, local government officials and members of non-governmental organizations.

A total of 115 villagers were injured, Basri said by telephone from Lhokseumawe, a coastal town near the site of the shootings. At least 43 were still being treated in hospitals for bullet wounds.

On Monday, security forces opened fire without warning on thousands of unarmed demonstrators who were protesting against the military violence.

In Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer described the deaths as a tragic incident and said they added to instability in Indonesia ahead of national elections on June 7.

The military said the troops opened fire in self-defense after being shot at by people in the crowd.

A low-level separatist movement has been simmering in Aceh for several years, and for most of the 1990s it has been effectively under Indonesian military control.

That military operation ended last year, but public protests against atrocities committed under military rule have been mounting in recent months.

Monday's shootings broke out following the disappearance of two army intelligence officials late last week, when around 10,000 people gathered to listen to a speech at a mosque by members of the separatist Free Aceh movement.

The shooting was triggered when protesters hurled stones at the troops in retaliation for stone-throwing by one of the security forces, witnesses said.

Shooting victims lay on mattresses on the grounds of an overcrowded hospital Tuesday.

Other patients wearing bloody bandages, some with bullet wounds in their backs, lay on the floor of the 200-bed state hospital in Lhokseumawe. Relatives held their hands and a few recited passages from the Koran, Islam's holy book.

The shooting Monday in the nearby village of Pulo Rungkom was one of the deadliest events in recent years in Aceh, where the military has long been accused of human rights abuses against a small band of pro-independence rebels.