Forgotten struggle for Aceh

By GRAHAM REID

The killings go on. Soldiers move through the villages and small market towns, and civilians disappear, are mutilated or murdered. Last year more than 1700 were killed and so far this year the toll stands at around 200. An estimated 20,000 children have been orphaned as a direct result of military activity.

These are the killing fields of a small corner of Indonesia, about the size of the central North Island. Despite the appalling body count it seldom makes a headline. And Helen Clark is not likely to discuss it during her first visit to Indonesia for a meeting with President Megawati Sukarnoputri, starting on Monday.

While attention was on East Timor, independence movements were on the rise in the provence of Aceh (pronounced Ah-chay) at the tip of Sumatra in the west - and they were copping the inevitable military backlash. It is yet another scrappy liberation struggle, but it is also emblematic of the issues facing Indonesia, a concept more than a country these days, as David Harries noted in the Wall Street Journal in January 2000.

"Indonesia is arguably the world's best example of a state that is no longer politically viable. The Indonesian archipelago comprises thousands of islands and over 210 million people, many of whom feel little if any allegiance to Jakarta.

"The country as it exists today is the result of Dutch colonial rule followed by decades of Javanese empire building. Aceh, an oil-rich province in northern Sumatra, is just one of seven territories where separatists are waging struggles for independence.

"Acehnese guerrillas have been fighting Indonesian rule since the mid-1970s. One of their main complaints has been unfair taxation and representation, as well as the corruption and brutality of the security forces that have long occupied the province. Aceh has the size, wealth and natural resources to put it high in the ranks of Southeast Asian states."

It also has a population of 4.3 million people - 67 per cent of whom are farmers - being watched by around 60,000 Indonesian troops. The Acehnese have a long history of resistance, starting with the war against Dutch colonists, which lasted almost 70 years from 1873 and was the most expensive war, in terms of life and money, ever fought by the Dutch. More than 10,000 Dutch people died.

After Indonesia declared its independence in 1945 the Aceh province joined the new nation and contributed to building the new country. But within a decade protests against regional profits being siphoned off to central government were increasing. In 1976 the nascent liberation movement declared independence for Aceh.

In came the Indonesian military. In 1989 repression began in earnest, with the Government declaring Aceh a military operation zone (DOM). The fall of President Suharto in 1998 after 31 years as president created an opportunity for the new government to rethink Aceh. President Habibie - a Suharto appointee and longtime crony - revoked the DOM status, visited the region and offered to investigate abuses. But nothing changed, and despite the recent revolving door of Indonesian administrations, the military still represses and murders, often out of Jakarta's control.

In November 1999 around 2 million people, almost half the Aceh population, gathered in the capital of Banda Aceh to support a referendum on independence.

In May 2000 the Indonesian Government and members of GAM (Gerakan Aceh, or Free Aceh Movement) agreed to a "humanitarian pause" in the fighting. While the Government acknowledged for the first time the Achenese desire for self-government, President Wahid noted darkly that Jakarta signed the agreement to end armed conflicts, so it should not be read as a recognition of GAM. And so the killings go on.

Aceh has nine distinct ethnic groups but what unites them is a shared hatred of the Indonesian military, says Erwanto, the 27-year-old economics major who is spokesman for the non-violent FPDRA (Acehnese Popular Democratic Resistance Front).

"It is because of 1989 when the military were all round Aceh and they killed and disappeared people and there was torture everywhere. That affected all of Aceh and that's the big reason we have become unified faster."

Briefly in New Zealand to talk up his cause, Erwanto's timing is canny, given Helen Clark's visit. Megawati has apologised to the Acehnese, but she is a nationalist and the third consecutive president to do so, so her apology has been greeted by scepticism by Acehnese.

But Erwanto believes that with the East Timor conflict seemingly resolved by the province's independence, , attention can now be turned to the Achenese.

Erwanto concedes that many aren't sure of all the nuances of the politics, but they know what they don't want.

"In 1998 I was at university and in the forefront of the student movement [against Suharto]. We left our studies and at the time I was in the Student Solidarity with the People Movement. After a year I organised people in south Aceh to oppose the logging in their area. Then four separate organisations came together on March 23, 2000, and united at a congress into the FPDRA."

The FPDRA is a civilian movement that supports peaceful methods of achieving change. Members refuse to use the Indonesian language, systems and symbols, and called on people to boycott the last election. Seventy per cent heeded that call. There have also been strikes, and the FPDRA is organising labour, student and women's groups, and publishing its own newspaper.

Should Aceh become independent or autonomous it will be economically viable. It is wealthy in timber and natural gas, so is witness to that dangerous conjunction of politics and industry. One of the biggest companies in the region, ExxonMobil, has been accused of colluding with the Government in repressing opposition to both Indonesia and its own financial interests.

Some also claim the company provided logistical support to the military, that its excavators dug mass graves and some of its facilities were used for interrogating and torturing locals.

The company denies this, but last June the International Labour Rights Fund filed a lawsuit in Washington DC on behalf of 11 anonymous Aceh villagers against ExxonMobil, alleging the company's complicity with Indonesian security forces in committing serious human rights abuses.

Among other things it is alleged Suharto assigned at least one unit of the army specifically to provide security to Mobil, which paid the soldiers and controlled and directed them.

And it is common knowledge that underpaid soldiers are involved in providing protection and engage in extortion, drug-running (marijuana grows wild), illegal harvesting of timber and fish, and prostitution.

Corruption and conflict is endemic in the region - and in this crucible of misinformation and factionalism there is also some suspicion about GAM.

"When Hasan Tiro declared independence in 1976," says Erwanto, "at that time only maybe 300 or 400 people were involved with GAM. But after 1998 and there was more democracy in the newspapers, which told what the military had done, then every Acehnese became angry and wanted to fight Jakarta - and at the time being a GAM was the only way.

"So at the time if you asked Acehnese they would say, 'I am GAM', but they don't understand the mechanism of the organisation. At the time it was symbolic to say 'I am GAM' because that meant you were with the freedom fighters. GAM uses guerrilla tactics and gets support from the people in villages who sometimes give them food and act as spies for GAM. But when one military is killed, the military will burn the village."

But there have been allegations of human rights abuses against GAM. Of necessity, it is a shadowy and secretive organisation - information about it is difficult to get because it has many spokespeople, and there have been suggestions it has split into rival factions, a schism being exploited by Jakarta.

Erwanto denies the accusations of human rights abuses, although he concedes, "I have heard they have killed some Acehnese who were the spy of the military. GAM would kidnap or disappear the spy of the military."

As with all such conflicts, it becomes more complex the more you look at it. But Erwanto has a simple message for Helen Clark.

"The important thing is I hope Helen Clark does not make some agreement between New Zealand and Indonesia. The impact of a military relationship between the international community and Indonesia is dangerous because the military in Indonesia will think it has support to continue human rights abuses. Megawati has said the military does not have to be afraid of human rights.

"I hope that [Clark] will talk about the Acehnese people too, because there have been many human rights abuses in Aceh. I hope she doesn't say that she respects Indonesian sovereignty because if you say that, it means you agree with what the military has done in Aceh, and that offers the military confidence to do anything."

But Erwanto is not optimistic. "I think everything will get worse because international politics has changed after September 11 to oppress people.

"Because the Aceh case is not famous internationally they [Indonesians] can oppress us. They have military commanders everywhere and Megawati can do nothing about the military."

What makes Aceh important beyond the obvious human rights issues is that a peaceful resolution could provide a template for Indonesia's future.

As Samantha F. Ravich wrote in the Washington Quarterly in mid-2000: "Aceh is, in many respects, a barometer of what is to come for the Indonesia of the next decade. If the reforms that the country must make can succeed in Aceh, they most likely can succeed on a countrywide scale. Likewise, failure in Aceh will foreshadow the republic's doom.

"Finding a way to address the grievances of the people of Aceh within the framework of a united Indonesia means that the Indonesians will need to craft both individual policies for the distinct constituencies while simultaneously embarking on a holistic approach.

"Certainly this is a difficult task but perhaps, if handled in a creative and open-minded way, it is not an impossible one."

But for now, the killings go on.