In the wake of East Timor's August 1999 referendum, hundreds of
thousands have marched in support of a similar act of self-determination in the
Indonesian region of Aceh, a region which also has endured decades of brutal
military operations.
Aceh is a province in Northern Sumatra, which, like most
of Indonesia, is overwhelmingly Muslim. It has a population of around five
million, and a long tradition of resistance to outside powers.
Islam likely first entered the Indonesian archipelago through Aceh
sometime around the 12th century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
the port of Aceh became entangled, along with the rest of what now comprises
Indonesia, in the European colonial powers' competition for worldwide political
and economic dominance.
The
British and Dutch were in competition for spices produced in Eastern Indonesia,
for which Aceh was an international trading center. In an attempt to undermine
Aceh's hold on the international spice trade, the British and Dutch carried
their business (and rivalry) to West Java.
After many parliamentary debates on
the wisdom of attacking a sovereign state, in 1873 the Netherlands issued a
formal declaration of war and invaded Aceh. One of their primary
rationalizations for this aggression was to counter what they perceived as
Acehnese piracy, especially attacks on trading ships.
The Acehnese resisted
occupation and fought a war of resistance which lasted intermittently from 1873
to 1942. The conflict was the longest the Dutch ever fought, costing them more
than 10,000 lives.
In March 1942 Japan conquered the colonial forces in the Dutch
East Indies. In August 1945, just days after the Japanese surrendered to the
Allies, the Republic of Indonesia proclaimed its independence. Soon, however,
both the British and Dutch were back in the region, though the Dutch did not
return to Aceh.
Under the Linggarjati Agreement, mediated by Great Britain and
signed by Indonesia and the Netherlands in March 1947, the Dutch recognized
Indonesian sovereignty over the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Madura.
Many
Indonesians viewed the deal as a violation of Indonesia's independence
proclamation of August 1945, which implied sovereignty over the whole territory
of the Republic. The agreement sparked guerrilla fighting and led to another
four years of violence and territorial disputes between the Netherlands and
Indonesia.
Many Acehnese see the 1949 Round Table Conference Agreements as
the first serious betrayal of their homeland. Brokered through the United
Nations, the agreements provided for a transfer of sovereignty between the
territory of the Dutch East Indies and a fully independent Indonesia.
On
December 27, 1949, the Dutch East Indies ceased to exist and became the
sovereign Federal Republic of Indonesia, which in turn became the Republic of
Indonesia when it joined the United Nations in 1950. The Kingdom of Aceh was
included in the agreements despite not having been formally incorporated into
the Dutch colonial possession. The Indonesian government then used armed troops
to annex Aceh.
Although Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country,
it is not an Islamic state. Most Acehnese have a less secular vision of Islam
than Indonesians elsewhere in the archipelago, but compared to Iran,
Afghanistan, and other more fundamentalist countries, Acehnese Islam tends to
be relatively respectful of the rights of women. Its focus on community also
stresses the importance of social and economic justice to an extent that runs
contrary to Indonesian military hegemony.
The precursor to Aceh's independence movement began in the 1950s
when the Darul Islam ("House of Islam") rebels on the major
Indonesian island of Java tried to establish an Islamic state. The Acehnese
lent support to this rebellion, which took years to crush.
In 1959, Jakarta gave Aceh "special territory" status,
which ostensibly conferred autonomy in religious, educational, and cultural
matters. In practice this policy ignored the two major complaints of the
region's indigenous population: Javanese and foreign control of natural
resources and a repressive military presence.
Resentment over those cruel realities contributed to the 1976
creation of the armed resistance group Gerekan Aceh Merdeka (GAM-Free Aceh
Movement), which the TNI refers to as Gerombolan Pengacau Keamananan (GPK), or
"gang of security disturbers." In the late 1970s, Indonesian
authorities conducted mass arrests of Aceh Merdeka members and killed many of
its leaders. The movement's leader, Hasan di Tiro, fled to Sweden in 1979 and
created a government in exile.
After GAM re-emerged with broad popular support in the late 1980s,
Jakarta officially declared the province a Military Operational Area (Daerah
Operasi Militer, or DOM) and launched a counter-insurgency campaign code-named
Red Net.
The regional commander at the time spelled out his military's basic
policies by saying, "I have told the community, if you find a terrorist,
kill him. There's no need to investigate him ... if they don't do as you order
them, shoot them on the spot, or butcher them." Amnesty International
reported that between 1989 and 1992 about 2,000 people were killed by military
operations in Aceh.
After international capitalism's "Asian financial
crisis" and Suharto's downfall, Acehnese had high hopes for a new era of
demilitarization and true democracy. Unfortunately the military proved
unwilling to do much beyond make cosmetic changes: announcing an end to DOM
status for Aceh on August 7, 1998, then Armed Forces Chief Wiranto said
"although human rights violations took place, the soldiers were only doing
their job of annihilating the armed security disturbers," and General
Feisal Tanjung told reporters that accusations of TNI abuses were merely
folk-tales.
Since Suharto's rise to power in the 1960s Aceh has been one of
the archipelago's most profitable areas for international investment. The
province includes most of Indonesia's liquid natural gas; Mobil Oil Indonesia
heads the country's largest liquefied natural gas production project in Arun,
North Aceh.
In its report "A Reign of Terror, Human Rights Violations in
Aceh 1998-2000," the U.K.-based Indonesia Human Rights Campaign TAPOL
notes that "the extent to which DOM in Aceh provided government officials
and military personnel with limitless opportunities to profit financially from
this economically fertile region cannot be underestimated.
"Such vested
interests will not be easily swayed by the soothing rhetoric of Indonesian
President Abdurrahman Wahid, who has repeatedly promised more than he can
deliver to the Acehnese people. On December 18, Wahid visited Aceh and called
on military commanders not to be "an enemy of the people," but
resistance activist Amni Achmad Marzuki responded, "We have heard him say
this many times. Where is the implementation of those words? His military makes
no effort to obey his orders."
The TAPOL report also notes that "The response of the
security forces to the withdrawal for DOM can be divided into four phases,
which more or less coincide with the different security operations
launched." These are "intimidation, overt massacres, war of attrition
and the return to shock therapy, and targeting of civilian activists."
That last phase is unfortunately still ongoing. In one of the more
disturbing recent examples, Munarman, coordinator of the Commission for Missing
Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) accused three policemen of being
responsible for the December 6 murders of three activists from Rehabilitation
Action for Torture Victims in Aceh (RATA). The three humanitarian workers were
killed while helping victims of military violence in North Aceh.
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