The 71-year-old former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today for his tireless efforts to end conflicts in many parts of the world, including in our once restive province of Aceh. While the world commemorates the International Human Rights Day on Wednesday, it is tempting to raise a question about the background of Ahtisaari's prize-winning story.

Aceh's prolonged war eventually ended in August 2005. Was this peace attributed to Ahtisaari's genius as a peace broker, or more because of the Dec. 2004 tsunami that severely damaged the province and brought both the government and the Aceh rebels to the same table for reconciliation and eventually a peace agreement?

While millions of Indonesians are very proud of Barack Obama's landslide victory in the US presidential election last month due to his childhood years in a Jakarta neighborhood, do we Indonesians share the same pride in Ahtisaari's achievement of a Nobel Peace Prize?

We do appreciate the former Finnish president for his success in mediating peace talks between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to end the war which had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives during the nearly three decades of war. Vice President Jusuf Kalla and GAM leaders also deserve our praise. However, without the tsunami disaster that hit the province on Dec. 26, 2004, which severely weakened the two warring parties, perhaps the road to peace in Aceh would have been much more difficult to travel.

Ahtisaari's Nobel win is actually an embarrassment for Indonesia, because the peace accord in Aceh is indeed his greatest peace achievement. If the military had not committed gross human rights violations and the central government had not robbed the Acehnese of their rights – including their rich natural resources – perhaps Ahtisaari's chances of winning would have been smaller.

This is not the first time Indonesia has been a key subject of a Nobel Peace Prize winner. In 1996 when East Timor was still a province of Indonesia, East Timorese Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta – the incumbent Timor Leste President – won it for their struggles in stopping Indonesian ferocities in East Timor. Three years later, those for independence won a referendum.

We can easily point fingers at the late Soeharto and his generals for the repugnant human rights violations in Aceh, East Timor and in other places in this country. But if we are honest with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that while our nation now has a stronger commitment to human rights protection and there have been fewer abuses since Soeharto's fall in 1998, as a nation we tend to cover up our past crimes.

The House of Representatives (DPR) has suddenly shown an interest in reopening the dark cases of violence, murders and kidnappings which occurred before and after Soeharto fell.

After ignoring military brutalities for years, political parties act as if they have now "repented" and want to find those who were responsible for these crimes. Many people suspect the legislators' sudden behavioral change is merely motivated by the wish to bluff their rivals in next year's legislative and presidential elections.

Many Indonesian Muslims tended to show little sympathy for the sufferings of the devout Muslims in seditious Aceh during the war because – for many of us – the existence of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) was to be preserved at all costs.

No single country in this world – Indonesia is no exception – is free from the problems of human rights. And as the world's third largest democracy in the world after India and the United States, our nation's track record in human rights protection is expected to improve a lot. We need to remember, however, that democracy does not only mean listening to the voices of the majority, but to all segments of society, no matter how few in number a segment may be.

We wish to congratulate the former Finnish president for winning the prestigious prize. However, we do hope that there will be no more future Nobel Peace Prize winners because of his/her achievements in ending human rights abuses in this country.