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.