FEER: Which Way Aceh? (fwd)

["M.G.G. Pillai" <pillai@mgg.pc.my>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 13 Mar 2000 03:23:52
From: tapol@gn.apc.org
Reply-To: "Conference act.indonesia" <indonesia-act@igc.org>
To: Recipients of indonesia-act <indonesia-act@igc.org>
Subject: FEER: Which Way Aceh?

From: TAPOL <tapol@gn.apc.org>

Received from Joyo Indonesian News

Far Eastern Economic Review   
03/16/2000 

The 5th Column 

Which Way Aceh?

By Anthony Reid 

In Jakarta, it is unthinkable that Aceh should separate from Indonesia. Yet 
in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, it is difficult to escape feeling that 
the province is irrevocably drifting toward independence. Daily reports of 
revenge killings and village burnings by the police have resulted in growing 
anger, and as such fewer and fewer Acehnese now care or dare to say anything 
good about their 55 years as part of a unitary Indonesian republic.

This public outrage has played beautifully into the hands of the Aceh 
Independence Movement, or Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, more commonly known as GAM, 
which increasingly is looking like a government in waiting. The commander of 
the GAM guerrilla army, Teungku Abdullah Syafiie, appears regularly on the 
front page of the local press. More and more it is to him that people turn to 
right wrongs. Although GAM's guerrilla forces operate in only half of Aceh's 
districts, plantations, shops and offices everywhere now pay contribution to 
its treasury. Most of the thousands of Aceh villages pay GAM 20% of the 10 
million rupiah ($1,400) that each receives annually from the central 
government in development funds.

The majority of Aceh's population were never enamoured of the Indonesian 
government. They got on with their lives, aware that attempts to renew the 
proud tradition of defiance of outside authority would lead to more suffering 
and hardship. But Aceh's two elites, the Islamic-educated ulamas and the 
modern-educated technocrats, did participate fully in the Indonesian national 
culture during the Suharto years, and largely absorbed the belief in national 
unity that the republic's education system had striven to promote. During the 
past year, the overwhelming evidence of military atrocities has rapidly 
eroded this faith.

The mood change is so profound that it's difficult to imagine it reversed 
without repressions more severe and prolonged than any Indonesia has waged. 
Given the present demoralization of the army, and a government led by an 
idealistic democrat, that is not going to happen soon. Indonesian and 
international policymakers need to begin thinking about how messy and 
prolonged the transition to some form of statehood will be, what kind of Aceh 
will emerge from it and what effects this may have on Indonesia.

The first of these questions determines the other two. A prolonged 
half-hearted war will strengthen the more militant Islamic elements, and 
perhaps extend the illegal economy in drugs. An orderly transition to a 
separate state within an Indonesian commonwealth, but without the hated 
Indonesian army, would make an ultimately federal or decentralized Indonesia 
more likely.

The shift in opinion of both elites became evident in February last year. Two 
concurrent meetings were both radicalized by news of yet another atrocity by 
the supposedly reformed military. One was a closed meeting of established 
politicians and academics, who surprised each other in a straw poll by their 
overwhelming preference for a referendum on independence. The other was a 
congress of 104 student organizations, which agreed to establish a 
referendum-campaign organization. This group pulled off a large mass rally on 
November 8, which forced the two elites to line up behind the referendum 
campaign.

The unexpectedly quiet passing, on December 4, of the 25th anniversary of the 
Aceh Merdeka declaration of independence was a victory for the third force of 
student and NGO groups. On that date, they persuaded GAM commander Syafiie to 
avoid the bloodshed that would follow an explicit challenge to Indonesian 
sovereignty. If anything, this moderation has consolidated a growing sense of 
common purpose between all the student-NGO groups and GAM in the direction of 
a peaceful, democratic transition.

The international community, understandably concerned about disintegration 
and chaos, is in danger of worsening the situation by backing the army as the 
ultimate guarantor of Indonesian integrity. The emphasis needs to be on 
democratic procedures and responsible governments, rather than the sacredness 
of colonial boundaries. The worst outcome would be a continuation of war and 
the radicalization of the student movement toward both Islamic fundamentalism 
and ethnic cleansing. The best would be an elected local government within 
some kind of Indonesian commonwealth, which could absorb the independence 
movement rather than surrender to it, and the disarmament or withdrawal of 
both Indonesian and GAM forces in favour of an internationally trained 
Acehnese police. The congress of Acehnese representative groups planned for 
this month could be a necessary first step to producing a leadership that can 
negotiate in this direction.

Indonesia can survive Aceh becoming a state if it doesn't remain hostage to 
its military, but responds as creatively to this regional issue as it has to 
reforming the central government. No other province has Aceh's credentials 
for statehood -- in its ethnic homogeneity, memory of a successful monarchy 
and blood shed for the cause. If Jakarta can imagine a nation held together 
by bonds other than military ones, a democratic Aceh state could still be 
part of it.

---

The writer is director of the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the 
University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of several books on 
the history of Aceh and Indonesia, and has just returned from a visit to 
Banda Aceh. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign
111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath,
Surrey CR7 8HW, UK
Phone: 0181 771-2904   Fax: 0181 653-0322
email: tapol@gn.apc.org
Internet: www.gn.apc.org/tapol
Campaigning to expose human rights violations in
Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua and Aceh

26 years - and still going strong 
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