Given the attention that is currently being paid in both government and media circles to the Swedish court's decision to release two leaders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) from custody, Indonesians are certainly right to ask how relevant events in Sweden are to the peaceful and lasting settlement of what is known here as the Aceh problem.
As has been reported, the district court in Huddinge, south of Stockholm, last Friday ordered the two GAM leaders – the "prime minister" in exile, Malik Mahmood (64), and "foreign minister" Zaini Abdullah (63) – released from custody, rejecting the chief prosecutor's request that the two exiled Acehnese rebel leaders be detained for two weeks.
A third leader, Hasan Tiro, the 80-year-old "president" of the movement, was spared detention for health reasons. It should be noted that the three fled Indonesia in the late 1970s in the face of escalating military pressure against the separatist movement. Zaini Abdullah and Hasan Tiro have since acquired Swedish citizenship, while Malik Mahmood has a Swedish residence permit and Singaporean citizenship.
Jakarta had been pressuring the Swedish government for quite some time to take legal action against the three, whom it accuses of not only actively supporting the separatist movement in the troubled province of Aceh, but of being linked to a number of terrorist acts in Indonesia. To lend substance to its claims, Jakarta has provided the Swedish authorities with what it says is adequate proof of the three leaders' involvement in the acts, thus forcing the authorities in Stockholm to take action.
Government authorities in Jakarta, not surprisingly, have expressed their unhappiness over the release of the two GAM leaders last week, although they acknowledged the Swedish judicial authorities' full competence in the matter.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Marty Natalegawa over the weekend, for example, called the GAM leaders' release a mere "technical matter" that had no bearing whatsoever on the issue at hand, which is that the three are being charged by the Swedish prosecutors with breaching international law.
The Indonesian authorities, both in Jakarta and in the Acehnese provincial capital of Banda Aceh, said they would provide the Swedish judicial authorities with more evidence and, if necessary, translators to explain the incriminating documents that had been seized from the exiled leaders' homes. Jakarta at the same time made it clear that it would not seek the extradition of the GAM leaders, since Indonesia has no extradition treaty with Sweden and thus cannot demand that they be extradited to Indonesia.
Clearly, Indonesia has a political interest in urging the Swedish authorities to keep up the pressure on the leaders of GAM, which has been fighting for the province's independence since 1976. What the authorities in Jakarta failed to mention, but which is nevertheless no less important a point, is that not only would asking for the extradition of the GAM leaders be a futile attempt on Jakarta's part, it would also be irrelevant to the lasting, peaceful settlement of the Aceh problem.
First of all, it is well worth asking what influence those three leaders in exile still have over the movement in Aceh. It would seem most plausible that the situation there has changed considerably since the late 1970s when the three left their native province. Second, it seems that the actual size and strength of the movement is also often overrated. However, it is interesting to note in this context that while in 1989 – when the Soeharto regime declared the province a Military Operations Area (DOM) – GAM's strength was estimated to be about 500 men and women, by the end of Soeharto's rule in 1998, the movement was believed to have grown to include some 3,000 men and women, which is evidence that a military solution is not only ineffective, but counterproductive.
What the people of Aceh need, in essence, is justice and the right to determine their own fate and future. In part, this desire for self-rule has been satisfied by the granting of a special autonomy status. Sadly, in the face of continuing unrest, Jakarta deemed it necessary to once again impose martial law on the province, and military action resumed in the form of the so-called "integrated operation", in which combat operations and humanitarian assistance are supposed to go hand-in-hand. With most of the province apparently pacified and martial law revoked, Aceh is now being administered under a state of civil emergency.
Thus, a situation appears to have been brought about which is conducive for the central government in Jakarta to put right the wrongs it has for so many decades inflicted on Aceh and the Acehnese. Jakarta must never forget the huge contribution that Aceh and the Acehnese made to the country's struggle for independence. Only by paying due respect to the legitimate rights of the Acehnese can Jakarta hope to establish peace in the province. Viewed from this perspective, secondary matters such as the conviction and extradition of a handful of leaders in exile appear irrelevant.