Farish A. Noor – Aceh has played a crucial role in the development of Indonesian national identity and the Indonesian nation-state. But after sacrificing so much to the idea and ideals of Indonesia, it appears that the struggle of the people of Aceh is far from over

For nearly three decades the people of Aceh, the northernmost province of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, have been paying the price for trying to maintain their sense of identity and history. This week, three key leaders of the Aceh movement – Hasan Tiro, Malik Mahmud and Abdullah Zaini – were arrested by the authorities in Sweden, the country they had fled to in search of exile and asylum in the 1980s.

Though the Swedish authorities have cited unspecified "crimes violating international law" as the reason for these arrests, many Acehnese activists and human rights groups claim that Jakarta is behind the detentions. Worse, with Indonesia under pressure to play according to Washington's rules in the so-called "war on terror", the label "terrorist" has now been put on the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) as well. Thus far the outcry against the arrests have been muted, and Indonesia claims the detentions are part of its efforts to bring peace and stability to the country. But few observers have cared to enquire about the tortured history of Aceh, or ask the obvious question of why Aceh has been fighting for their rights for so long.

Foreign observers of Indonesian politics tend to forget that Indonesia" is an artificial entity. Spanning the geographical space of Europe, it comprises more than 350 recognised ethnic groups and 250 linguistic communities. Among the communities of present-day Indonesia, one community in particular stands out for its contribution to the country's independence struggle against the Dutch; its transnational linkages to the rest of the world and its cosmopolitan make-up: Aceh.

Situated at the northernmost tip of the great island of Sumatra, the province of Aceh covers the territory of the once-great Kingdom of Aceh. The Acehnese themselves have often been described by Dutch colonial administrators and Oriental scholars as haughty, proud of their achievements and fiercely independent in their outlook.

Being located at the northwestern most fringe of Indonesia meant that Aceh was the one kingdom that was most exposed to, and consequently influenced by, external cultural influences from the West. Aceh was also a major centre of Islamic learning, politics and culture, blending together Acehnese-Malay, Indian, Arab and Turkish influences into what would later become a cosmopolitan expression of Islamic normativity and culture.

But the people of Aceh remained unique in many respects and were proud of their own sense of identity. The Arab travellers who visited the kingdom were shocked to discover that the Acehnese were a matrilineal people and that in Acehnese society women played a prominent role in politics and social life: the "kingdom" was once ruled by a succession of female "Sultans" and Aceh even had a woman as the head of its royal navy – Laksamana Koemalahayati – surely a first in Muslim history!

Aceh's moment of glory came at the turn of the 20th century when the Dutch who had consolidated their rule over the rest of the Dutch East Indies made the fatal mistake of trying to conquer and domesticate Aceh as well. This led to the great "Aceh war", which dragged on for three decades and practically bled the Dutch colonial forces dry. Aceh's resistance to the Dutch inspired other Indonesians and Southeast Asians to rise up in revolt against the colonial masters. The Dutch colonial government in turn faced their first "Vietnam", and the conflict was so costly that it nearly bankrupted the colonial economy of the Netherlands. At the outset of World War II, the invading Japanese understood the power and influence of the Acehnese on the rest of the region, and plans were made to smuggle a group of Acehnese freedom fighters back into Aceh via Malaya, with the help of anti-British elements in that British colony. During WWII it was Acehnese resistance that proved crucial in the battle for Sumatra and by extension Southeast Asia. The Acehnese expected their sacrifices to be rewarded by the post-colonial government in due course.

This was not to be: When the leaders of Indonesia Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesia independent in 1945, Aceh was given the honorary status of a special province. But it was also integrated into the Indonesian central state system and the local rulers of Aceh were stripped of any real power. Indonesia's brief flirtation with democracy ended when Sukarno declared himself supreme leader of Indonesia saying that democracy "could not work" in the country.

By the late 1950s, Indonesia began its slide into authoritarianism with Sukarno declaring "guided democracy" to be the new philosophy of the state. In the 1960s and 1970s Indonesia's fortunes rose and fell as the outer regions felt themselves marginalised by the central government. The discovery of crucial oil and gas reserves in Aceh made the region even more important to Indonesia's national development, but the Acehnese themselves felt cheated as the Indonesian oil conglomerate Pertamina simply took away their resources while spending little on the development of Aceh itself.

These factors led to the rise of an increasingly vocal and assertive Aceh regional movement, and the birth of the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) that came under the leadership of men like Hasan Tiro. Citing the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2711-XXV (adopted on October 14, 1970) that recognised the right for self-determination on behalf of colonised peoples, GAM began its struggle for independence in the 1970s. But GAM's struggle incurred a heavy cost on the people of Aceh. Indonesia turned the province into a virtual battle zone with thousands of Indonesian army personnel being sent there to eliminate the so-called "terrorists". In the early 1980s the Indonesian Elite Kospassus force scored a coup by kidnapping one of the religious leaders of the Aceh movement and transporting him to Jakarta.

Throughout this period, the cost of the struggle in Aceh has been high in terms of abuses of human rights and the loss of innocent lives. But Indonesia was then under the helm of President Suharto, a key trusted ally to Washington, the Western bloc and western economic interests. When Indonesia forcibly annexed East Timor in 1974 the Americans were muted in their protests, as they were in 1965 when Suharto came to power following the mass killings of opposition communists in the country.

The rest, as they say, is history. But what a bloody history it is too. Since the mid-1970s the Indonesian army has launched several "security campaigns" in Aceh, such as Operations Rencong I and II, leading to the killing of more than 10,000 civilians and the destruction of much of the social infrastructure there, including schools and hospitals. It was only in 1998, when the government of the dictator Suharto was on the verge of collapse, that the true extent of the horrific murders and abuses in Aceh came to light, with scores of unidentified mass graves being "recovered" and exposed by the new independent media of post-Suharto Indonesia. Many had hoped that these revelations would lead to the final recognition of the legitimate demands of the Acehnese, not least their fundamental demand to receive some compensation for the exploitation of the resources in their territory and for more basic development. But following September 11 and the US discourse on "terrorism" the cause of Aceh has once more been relegated to the margins. What is worse, the Acehnese movement has now been presented as being terrorist instead, leading to further demonisation of GAM and culminating in the recent arrest of its leaders.

Aceh has played a crucial role in the development of Indonesian national identity and the Indonesian nation-state. But the tide of world politics these days is less sympathetic to local movements struggling for autonomy and self-determination. After sacrificing so much to the idea and ideals of Indonesia, it appears that the struggle of the people of Aceh is far from over. That, in the end, is Indonesia's loss as much as it is Aceh's.

[Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist.]