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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
NOVEMBER 26, 1999 VOL. 25 NO. 47
Aceh: Jakarta's Big Headache
A referendum pledge stirs political tensions
By JOSE MANUEL TESORO and DEWI LOVEARD Aceh
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has no lack of controversies or challenges. Protests greeted his recent decisions to dissolve two ministries and to open trade relations with Israel. His plan to replace three (unnamed) ministers suspected of corruption is also causing ripples. Then there is the huge hangover of problems from past regimes: the economic devastation, the political divisions, the social discontent.
On Nov. 16, Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, touched off another firestorm. The Muslim leader had earlier voiced support for a referendum in the restive province of Aceh, but kept vague about a timetable. But during a state visit to Japan, Wahid announced that a vote would be held within seven months, after consultations with parliament, though he did not specify its terms. Indonesia's fate may hinge on the consequences of his decision.
Aceh, at the western tip of the archipelago, not only houses immense natural resources but was also one of the first areas to join the nation. In 1997, the province provided 17% of Indonesia's $11.8 billion oil and gas export earnings. Its secession would cast doubt on the continued viability of the 54-year-old republic. "Aceh can live without Indonesia," says political scientist Dewi Fortuna Anwar. "But Indonesia cannot live without Aceh."
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Wahid responded quickly. He had already appointed Acehnese as his human rights minister and deputy armed forces chief. He had ordered all troops not based in the province to be withdrawn. (So far, 600 have left.) After the rally, he sent four ministers on a listening tour of the region. And, most important, he has affirmed his long-held sympathies for a referendum, which he voiced during a visit to Aceh in May while campaigning for June's parliamentary elections.
Yet just as quickly, Wahid has run smack into his own limitations. Many Indonesians now worry about their president's headstrong tendencies. "Gus Dur has to change his pattern and style of leadership," said a representative of a group of religious leaders in East Java. Both army generals and parliamentary leaders have voiced disapproval of how far Wahid has gone in promoting a referendum. On Nov. 11, a group of generals advised Wahid openly that he should not support a vote merely on his instinct that Aceh would not secede. Four days later, Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security Gen. Wiranto said: "The form of the unitary Republic of Indonesia is final." Military spokesman Maj-Gen. Sudrajat added that Gus Dur's time frame for a vote is only his personal opinion. Even leaders of other potential separatist movements are shaking their heads. Says Riau pro-independence figure Tabrani Rab: "The government appears to have poor behavior: offering broad autonomy and also supporting a referendum."
Wahid's biggest hurdle is the same one his predecessor B.J. Habibie faced when he offered East Timor a referendum on independence: his own military. Partly out of fear, partly from inertia, the army has a tough time facing its past. The armed forces, notes Australia-based military analyst Robert Lowry, ended up believing in the ideology of national unity originally designed to pacify the masses. "As a result, there was enormous intolerance of any other way to do things," he says. Though the military has instituted some reforms in the past two years, the lack of decisive leadership means they have not spread throughout the forces. "There's no real discipline in the army to win over people," says Lowry. "What goes out of Jakarta as a persuasive approach ends up at the sharp end as a repressive approach."
In part, that is why things on the ground have not improved, despite some conciliatory moves by leaders. (They include Wiranto's apology to Acehnese for past human-rights violations, the cancellation last year of Aceh's status as a military operations region and the removal of special shock troops.) An independent inquiry said last week it had found 7,000 cases of rights violations in Aceh since anti-separatist operations were launched a decade ago. It recommended that the government focus on five cases - three of which occurred in the past year, including a massacre of 40 protesters and the shooting of an Acehnese activist and his students. Wahid's attorney-general, Marzuki Darusman, says he wants the president's permission to try soldiers in civil rather than military courts. But army chief of staff Gen. Subagyo opposes the proposal.
In the struggle of the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) for the hearts of the Acehnese, its best weapon against Jakarta has been Indonesia's own army. Wearing a blindfold on the way to one of GAM's hideaways in Pidie regency does not mask the stench of death that fills the forest, or block out the barking dogs that have just discovered a decomposing body. Many of the victims in the decade-long war between GAM and the military are dumped along the province's winding roads or into its ravines and valleys.
If GAM tried attacking the army frontally, admits senior rebel official Ismail Syahputra, "we would run out of energy very soon." But, he says, "we take diplomatic advantage of their brutality." Many Acehnese women, or their sons, join GAM to avenge the death of a brother, husband or father. Recently, Cut Fatimah's only son told her he was going to a prayer group in a neighboring village. He never came back. His corpse was later found in a valley, with one hand missing. Fatimah's husband had been shot 10 years earlier by Indonesian troops, while unarmed. "Why do the Javanese, who have been given so much of our wealth, still want our lives?" she asks angrily. "I have no choice but to go to war against our enemy."
But the field troops are themselves caught in the crossfire. Suparlan, a police officer, was initially pleased to accept an assignment to Aceh because it meant he and his men would be battling separatists instead of young demonstrators. Now, he feels caught between his orders and the palpable resentment of locals toward anyone in military uniform. "I am more embarrassed by the job I have to do here than when I was facing students in Jakarta," he says. "We are regarded as war criminals. Instead of protecting our country, we are seen as colonialists."
Discipline is poor. News of planned attacks leak out via paid informers, often soldiers themselves who need money to supplement their paltry pay. GAM commander Teuku Maulida says some of the rebels' arms come from soldiers or police. The going rate: $220 for an FN pistol, and up to $1,500 for an M-16, depending on how desperate the soldiers are for cash.
Bringing justice to Aceh presents a double peril to Wahid and the military. Not only would many senior officers feel personally threatened, but inquiries and trials would also reveal how poorly they have managed the forces. But Aceh seems unwilling to settle for anything less. "If the government is prepared to fulfill the people's demand and investigate rights abuses, that would be enough," says Acehnese academic Bachtiar Aly. "Don't wait until everybody is looking for revenge for their relatives' lives."
One major difference exists between Aceh and East Timor: there is no appetite internationally to see Indonesia lose another province, especially one as crucial to its identity as Aceh. Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon fretted that separatism in Muslim-majority Aceh might ignite troubles in Mindanao or southern Thailand. During his recent U.S. visit, Wahid accepted an offer from President Bill Clinton of conflict-resolution advisers. But foreigners' role in securing East Timor's independence has raised Acehnese expectations.
Soon after he became president, Gus Dur said he wanted to handle the Aceh problem personally. With the thirst for change in Aceh so far unslaked, and Jakarta up in arms over his policies, that is exactly how he might have to do it: alone. This year, parliament passed a new law on regional autonomy, which provides for federalism in all but name. But autonomy was given not at the provincial level but the much smaller district level - reflecting the still-strong sense in Jakarta that Indonesia must remain a unitary republic. The protests in Aceh - and similar stirrings in areas as far apart as Irian Jaya and East Kalimantan - suggest that more, and faster, change is needed. If there is still to be an Indonesia.
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