Al Gedicks, who teaches sociology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and is the author of "Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations", says the internal conflict in Aceh is much more about politics and economics than religion. He accuses the United States of failing to do everything in its power to stop the Indonesian government crackdown on separatists that has lasted two months.
While world attention is focused on the postwar chaos in Iraq, Indonesia has launched an invasion of resource-rich Aceh (pronounced ah CHAY), in the country's biggest military assault since the 1975 invasion of East Timor.
Located on the tip of northern Sumatra, Aceh has a population of four million and is located at the western edge of the Indonesian archipelago, about 1,200 miles northwest of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on the island of Java.
In May this year, President Megawati Sukarnoputri put Aceh province under martial law and ordered over 40,000 soldiers and paramilitary police officers to put down the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which comprises approximately 5,000 guerrillas who have been waging a war for independence in the dense, mountainous forests for the past 30 years.
Indonesia's military chief, General Endriatono Sutarto, has ordered his soldiers to hunt down the rebels and "destroy them to their roots." The problem with uprooting the guerrillas is that they enjoy the support of the vast majority of the Achenese. While the Achenese are mostly devout Muslims, this is not a war about religion, but about politics and economics.
According to a recent report from the Rand Corporation, a US Air Force think tank, "the perception is widespread that the Acehnese have not benefited from the province's enormous natural wealth and that industrial development projects have been introduced merely to provide employment opportunities to outsiders, especially from Java." "Given Indonesia's past abuses in Aceh," says Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, "there is tremendous potential for civilians to be targeted in the violence." The United Nations Children's Fund – UNICEF – warned of an impending crisis for the civilian population with the collapse of already weak health services.
In the first five days of the invasion, the United Nations reported the burning of more than 200 schools.
The counterinsurgency strategy being carried out by the Indonesian military is designed to separate the guerrillas from their popular base by forcibly moving villagers into secure compounds or so-called "strategic hamlets" reminiscent of the Vietnam War.
The government estimates that the number of internally displaced people in Aceh will increase to 100,000 from the current 5,000.
As in many other places in the world where ethnic minorities have revolted against state authority, there is an attempt to portray the separatists as terrorists who must be crushed miltarily. However, this characterisation flies in the face of the historical record.
The Acehnese resisted Dutch colonial domination during the 18th and 19th centuries and were at the forefront of Indonesia's fight for independence during the 1940s. When Indonesia declared independence in 1945, Aceh was promised autonomy but never received it.
One of the grievances fueling the rebellion in Aceh is the secret war waged against GAM in the 1990s under the Suharto military dictatorship, which lasted from 1965 to 1998.
From May 1990 to August 1998, Aceh was declared a Military Operations Area, during which the Indonesian armed forces carried out extensive counterinsurgency operations against the GAM. In this period, thousands of civilians were killed, disappeared or tortured. More than 12,000 Acehnese have been killed by Indonesian troops since the GAM demanded independence in 1976.
According to Carmel Budiardjo, the founder and director of TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign in London: "Human rights violations – state terror – and the failure to punish the perpetrators, have done more to make the Acehnese secessionists than their many other grievances." One of the first priorities for the invading soldiers was to secure the Exxon Mobil natural gas plant near the major city of Lhokseumawe, which exports to Japan and South Korea. The plant is one of the largest resource projects in Indonesia and generates more than $1 billion a year in government revenues that go directly to Jakarta.
The ongoing rebel attacks on oil and gas operations and staff led Exxon Mobil to temporarily shut down its operations in March 2001. When the plant reopened in July 2001, Indonesia sent more than 3,000 troops in what the country's top security minister called "the biggest security deployment in Indonesia ever to defend a vital installation." However, the people surrounding the plant complain that the Indonesian troops who have been hired by Exxon Mobil to provide security have systematically violated the human rights of Acehnese villagers.
In 2001, the US based International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil on behalf of 11 villagers. It charges that the villagers were the victims of murder, torture and kidnapping by Indonesian soldiers paid to protect the plant. Exxon Mobil denies any involvement with the alleged abuses.
Although the insurgency in Aceh may be the most serious challenge to Indonesia's territorial integrity, it is not the only secessionist movement – the example of East Timor's separation from Indonesia has encouraged ongoing separatist movements in economically strategic provinces such as Riau.
Riau produces half of Indonesia's oil and West Papua – formerly known as Irian Jaya – where the US based Freeport McMoRan mining company operates the world's largest and richest gold mine and provides about 15 percent of Indonesia's foreign exchange earnings.
While the United States does not believe the Aceh conflict can be solved by military force, the Bush administration is not willing to use its influence over the Indonesian military to demand a troop withdrawal and a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
This would not be the first time that the United States has looked the other way when US-trained and equipped Indonesian troops engaged in genocidal aggression.in the name of national security.