John Haseman, Bangkok – Indonesia is resuming extensive military operations in the troubled province of Aceh after almost a year of fruitless political negotiations, humanitarian pauses and ceasefires which the government fears have considerably strengthened the separatist Aceh Merdeka guerrilla force (GAM).
The efforts to achieve a non-military settlement between the Indonesian government and the GAM had minimal effect in reducing casualties – during this year alone more than 600 people have been killed and wounded in Aceh.
The policy change is contained in a comprehensive plan that combines intensified security operations against armed separatist units with a wide range of non-military initiatives to address grievances in the resource-rich province.
In essence, the government is gambling that government issues wrapped in a comprehensive local autonomy package will satisfy the wide majority of Acehnese who do not support independence from Indonesia.
The Aceh plan, issued by President Abdurrahman Wahid as a formal Presidential Instruction on 11 April, assigns responsibilities to no less than two co-ordinating ministers, 12 cabinet-level ministers, the national police chief, the head of the National Intelligence Agency and commander-in-chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI).
Overall responsibility for security operations has been vested in the national police rather than the TNI, the former having been assigned the internal security mission after the police were separated from the TNI last year.
A senior TNI official told Jane's Defence Weekly that the armed forces are dissatisfied with the role they have been given in Aceh. For several months senior TNI officers have pressured President Wahid to approve resumption of full-scale military operations against the GAM. After the framework of the Presidential Instruction became known, the TNI urged a more comprehensive military involvement that would include formal declaration of a civil emergency in the province. Such a step would provide greater legal protection for TNI troops in the event of civilian casualties.
"What happens when my troops shoot an armed guerrilla and capture his weapon, but his family insists he was unarmed?" one army general asked rhetorically.
A number of TNI officers have cited these concerns as partial justification for the slowness of armed forces to respond to incidents of ethnic violence in the outlying archipelago. Mindful of human rights abuses during previous military operations in Aceh, TNI commander-in-chief Adm Widodo pledged that military operations will be "specifically targeted" against armed separatist guerrillas to minimise civilian casualties. "I have just asked my forces to perform their duties professionally. I have also asked them to ensure that they are there to create peace [and] not to make war with innocent people," he said.
The TNI have formed a unique multi-service task force, dubbed the Rajawali (Hawk) Task Force, for operations in Aceh. Comprising more than 1,000 personnel drawn from the army, air force and marine corps, the force consists of 11 company-size teams who have received several months of training in guerrilla tactics, counter-guerrilla warfare, and psychological operations at the Army Special Forces Command (Kopassus) training center at Batujajar, West Java.
This is the first time that so many regular line Indonesian armed forces personnel have been given additional special forces training.
The TNI General Staff apparently chose this course of action to avoid a deployment of Kopassus troops to Aceh. Kopassus has been repeatedly accused of human rights violations during prior deployments to Aceh and East Timor. By keeping the special forces away from Aceh this time, the TNI is hoping that the quick training programme will enable the Rajawali Task Force units to conduct effective counter-guerrilla operations and minimise alienation of the populace.
These recent deployments bring the number of troops in Aceh to well over 12,000. To simplify command and control, the TNI has created an operational command for Aceh. Brig Gen Zamroni, commander of the Army Education and Training Command and former deputy Kopassus commander, will assume command of existing territorial force commands at Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe as well as all TNI troops deployed from outside the province. Gen Zamroni will report to the Medan-based northern Sumatra Kodam commander, Maj Gen I G Purnama.
However, overall supervision of security operations in Aceh will fall under the aegis of the national police. There are more than 20,000 national police personnel in Aceh, including a significant component of the Police Mobile Brigade. Senior officials are anxious that this large police-military security operation works smoothly.
Prior experience in Aceh and elsewhere pointed to a serious lack of co-ordination between the armed forces and the police. The single biggest challenge of the entire Aceh programme will be the effective co-ordination of the large and cumbersome security structure.
GAM spokesmen have condemned the Indonesian plan for Aceh and refused a government offer to hold yet another round of negotiations, warning that further violence can be expected.
Some 2,500 army troops already deployed in Aceh have been assigned to secure the Arun natural gas complex in North Aceh operated by ExxonMobil. A senior TNI officer told JDW that this is an integral part of military operations in Aceh, combining static defence of key installations and facilities with active patrolling to prevent GAM forces from gaining access to Arun or threatening ExxonMobil staff.
ExxonMobil shut down its operations and evacuated all its non- Acehnese staff in March last year, citing a steady increase in violence against its personnel and facilities. The company is under heavy pressure to resume operations, but is adamant that it will not reopen the facility until the threat to its personnel is removed.
ExxonMobil officials told JDW that the combination of arson, ambushes, bombings, terrorist threats, and sniping was far more extensive than reported in the press. Indonesia normally earns $100 million monthly in natural gas sales from the Arun field.