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Aceh: Jakarta's misguided
optimism
By Phar Kim Beng
HONG KONG - Aceh, like East Timor, has seen its
share of separatist problems for the greater part of the
past 30 years. Located in northern Sumatra,
gas-and-oil-rich Aceh has also become the scene of one
of the most neglected conflicts in Southeast Asia,
certainly less conspicuous than the running battles
between Manila and Mindanao.
Now that East Timor
has become independent of Indonesia, however, the sights
of the Indonesian military have been trained, once
again, on Aceh, an area known as Serambi Mecca (The
Gateway of Mecca) for its austere version of Islam.
Because of lower visibility, the separatist
problem in Aceh creates an environment for numerous
human-rights abuses, an endemic condition that is
certain to continue into its 28th year as the Indonesian
army attempts to subjugate the separatist rebels of GAM
(Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or Free Aceh Movement) by landing
more troops.
While Indonesians in general are
aware of the human-rights abuses perpetrated by their
army, most continue to see the insurgency in Aceh as the
most serious challenge to the republic's territorial
integrity yet. Many believe it ought to be put down.
What is more, Aceh is one of Indonesia's richest
provinces, accounting for between 11 and 15 percent of
Jakarta's total export earnings in oil, gas and timber.
The incentives to retain Aceh have never been stronger.
Lately, there is also another reason why
Indonesians are getting more impatient with the
long-running Aceh conflict. The "loss" of East Timor,
Sipadan and Ligitan in recent years, the latter two
islands to Malaysia in a ruling by the International
Court of Justice in The Hague, has heightened
nationalist feelings too, making compromise between
Jakarta and GAM almost impossible.
The efforts
of the Henri Dunant Center in Geneva to mediate the
conflict between GAM and Jakarta has been seen not only
as meddlesome but as another conspiracy to chip away at
the sovereignty of the republic.
In the interim,
several factors continue to lend themselves to allowing
the Indonesian army to have a greater say on how the
Acehnese conflict should be resolved militarily. Very
crudely, they form the dynamic of the Aceh conflict.
First, GAM's small size, composed of just
500-800 hardcore members, continues to lull ambitious
Indonesian army generals, as well as civilian office
seekers, into believing that a military solution is
within grasp if proper number of troops can be deployed
- that as long as more forces are used, GAM can be put
down.
Indeed, even given the most positive
estimate, independent analysts believe that GAM has
about 2,000 members at the most. Given that Aceh has a
total population of up to 4.3 million, the small
proportion of Acehnese who belong to GAM leads - or
misleads - the Indonesian army into believing that GAM
lacks representative legitimacy and support. Triumph
cannot be a distant goal if they are given a free rein
by Jakarta to snuff out GAM. Little attention is paid to
the possibility of GAM mixing with the local population,
a tried and tested guerrilla tactic of the Viet Cong at
one stage.
Second, while GAM's military training
and supply once came from Libya in the late 1980s, this
option has since been curtailed. GAM also procures its
weapons in the black market, namely in Cambodia and
Thailand, two countries whose leadership, in the name of
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) unity,
have been dissuaded by Jakarta from providing any
material support.
Together, these are supply
lines that the Indonesian military believes it could
effectively interdict, hence emboldening it to use force
to deal with GAM whenever patience runs thin, as was
occasioned by the collapse of the recent talks in Tokyo.
Aside from that, there is the strong ethnic
identity of the Acehnese, reinforcing the argument of
the Indonesian army that GAM has to be crushed lest it
further rallies other Acehnese to its side.
Jakarta has bought into each of the arguments
put forth by the Indonesian military. This is because of
the widespread perception that that GAM - not Acehnese -
is fighting to claim the enormous natural wealth in the
area. Nor, according to Jakarta, is GAM fighting in the
name of Islam, since Jakarta has on several occasions
agreed to allow the Acehnese to have greater autonomy to
implement Islamic law, yet such gestures have time and
again been turned down.
In the eyes of Jakarta,
GAM's bad faith was most apparent after the signing of
the demilitarization agreement last December. Instead of
laying down their arms gradually, GAM openly rallied the
people to seek complete independence from Indonesia in
next year's general election. GAM, in other words, tried
to use the window of opportunity to gain political
legitimacy to challenge the rule of Jakarta.
In
the view of Jakarta, GAM has broken not only the peace
but also Indonesian laws that are clearly opposed to
allowing any elements to promote independence or
separation.
On the part of Aceh, the excesses of
the Indonesian army are clearly too bitter to swallow.
Up to 12,000 civilians have perished. Human Rights Watch
in 1999 catalogued no fewer than 7,000 cases of serious
human-rights violations by the Indonesian military in
Aceh since anti-separatist operations were launched in
1979. Such excesses engendered increased support for GAM
and its violent separatist agenda, which has included
plenty of human-rights violations of its own.
If
anything, despite the fall of the Suharto regime in
1998, the reputation of the Indonesian army as a
trigger-happy force remains entrenched in Banda Aceh and
other surrounding areas.
For instance, 24
soldiers and one civilian were convicted in May 2000 of
the massacre of 57 Aceh villagers. However, the court
did not charge or indict any senior officers in the
chain of command. The highest-ranking officer involved,
a lieutenant-colonel, disappeared before the legal
proceeding began and has yet to be found. Such
half-measures have not pacified the Acehnese.
To
be sure, the relationship between Jakarta and GAM has
little prospect of improving in the near future now that
martial law has been imposed for six months. Suspicions
over the motives of the Indonesian army continue to
prevail.
A rally in Bireuen regency held to
celebrate GAM's 24th anniversary on December 4, 2000,
for example, was attended by 500-1,000 uniformed GAM
troops. Although the Indonesian security forces did not
intervene, some GAM members returning to their home
districts after the rally were killed in a clash with
government forces in eastern Aceh.
Indeed,
General Ryamizard Ryacudu, currently the army chief
leading the offensive in Aceh, has affirmed that if need
be, martial law can be repeatedly imposed after the
lapse of six months.
For those who expect to see
some form of peace in Aceh in the near to mid-term, they
should not hold their breath. The problem is more
convoluted than is otherwise presented by the Indonesian
military, that it is a simple separatist problem with a
small number of GAM rebels. If anything, it is becoming
an enduring conflict because of its complex features,
especially after GAM has successfully infiltrated into
the Aceh population at will - a tactic that leaves the
Indonesian army hapless as it can't separate GAM from
the non-combatants.
The Acehnese themselves do
not appear ready to settle for autonomy, as reflected by
the huge support given to an independence rally in Banda
Aceh, the provincial capital, in November 1999, then
again in November 2000. With crowd estimates ranging up
to a million, both events were the largest
demonstrations of public separatist sentiment in
Indonesian history. Given such numbers, GAM believes,
correctly or otherwise, that it has the upper hand if
the conflict is to drag on indefinitely.
When
the Indonesian army continues to commit security
excesses, as GAM predicts it will, despite repeated
disclaimers from Jakarta, then half its battles are won
in the hearts and minds of the Acehnese, given Aceh's
proud anti-colonial history to resist what is often
deemed as Jakarta's attempt to impose Javanese rule on
Aceh.
Indeed, while GAM may be small, it can
continue to draw on large support, even if not all
Acehnese are in favor of independence or the imposition
of Islamic law. GAM's goal is not necessarily to evict
the presence of the Indonesian army as it is to draw
Acehnese into hating the forces sent by Jakarta.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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