Stephen Fitzpatrick, Montasik – Acehnese rebels fighting for an independent homeland have descended from the isolation of northern Sumatra's mountains to restock and regroup after the tsunami that killed 100,000 on the Indonesian island.
A small band of fighters of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which declares itself "the only legitimate government of Aceh", said yesterday they had emerged from their hideouts shortly after the December 26 disaster struck, confident the Indonesian military forces ranged against them were either dead or had been redirected to the relief effort.
They claimed to be just one of several such groups "protecting" Acehnese villages closer to the coastal fringe and gathering supplies to take back to their mountain camps. Like the others, this group, led by 24-year-old Mukhlis Abei, of the Montasik region east of the Acehnese capital, Banda Aceh, will return to its eyrie when it hears of renewed military operations against it.
That is likely to be within days, with the announcement yesterday that Indonesia would bolster its military presence in Aceh to 50,000 troops.
Military spokesman Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin said the fresh soldiers would focus solely on humanitarian operations, initially the cleaning up of debris in towns. Asked if the soldiers would be used in the military's battle against GAM rebels, General Syamsuddin said: "No, no, no, of course not."
After his and his fellow fighters' sudden and silent appearance in the mountains east of Banda Aceh, where they made a close inspection of The Australian's car and its contents, Abei dropped his gruff demeanour and decided it was safe to head to the top of a nearby hill, where the surrounding countryside could be surveyed, to describe his operation.
Abei said he was the panglima of the Montasik region east of Banda Aceh – a choice of title whose effect was both powerful and deliberate. The word conjures for many Acehnese the image of a middle-aged, heavily decorated Javanese military careerist, a man whose rise has most likely come at their expense.
For Abei, in shorts, thongs and a sleeveless black T-shirt, it is a delightful irony. He is sustained by the belief that "we are the Acehnese people"; it is reason enough to believe that the Indonesian military can never defeat GAM.
He at least has history on his side. Aceh's partisans defeated Dutch colonialism through sheer dint of never giving up over centuries, and the current participants expect one day to also wear down the Indonesians, whom they offered to join in federation after World War II but maintain they were never prepared to be subjugated by.
"This is our family," Abei declares, spreading his arm to include the handful of villagers who hover nearby: children, women and old men, keeping a cautious but relaxed distance. "These people are giving us what they can spare, though they have nothing. We will take food, particularly rice, back to our camp."
The men who never really grew out of being boys joke about and jostle to be in photographs; they seem equal parts wild teenager and serious killer. Their automatic weapons are one moment dangled casually towards the ground, the next pointed towards mock targets in the middle distance.
Some have movie star good looks; one wears a T-shirt plastered with the logo of the west Javanese infantry battalion, Yonif 320 – an item of clothing whose former owner almost certainly died at the hands of this young ideologue. The battalion is one of several assigned to Aceh; wearing the shirt is the guerilla's equivalent of military braid.
Yet it is hard to get a sense of what motivates this small band, other than a kind of naive nationalism: "we are the Acehnese" is about as sophisticated as it gets.
In their mountain retreat there is no time for girlfriends or material diversions. "We relax and pray, mostly," says another. "There's not really a lot else to do."
Abei is the oldest of his small crew and the only one who is married. He says his wife was snatched from a car a week ago in a nearby village where she was staying with the couple's two-year-old child, Salahuddin. The boy, he says, was thrown from the vehicle. He survived and is being cared for by his grandmother.
They say their group in the mountains numbers about 200, although at the moment most have dispersed through the region, waiting for orders to move. "Then we will retreat to the mountains again; we can disappear so that they never find us," another brags.
To the small band of fighters under Abei in the hills around Montasik, their duty is clear. "In a situation where the TNI are threatening the Acehnese people, we protect the Acehnese people," Abei says.