Kanis Dursin – Wearing a headscarf, T-shirt and jeans, Nurhayati, 21, appears very much like any other girl in Aceh.
She gets about on a motorbike and travels from Darussalam in Aceh Besar, some 13 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, to attend discussions in the provincial capital. As the discussions often drag into the late afternoon, Nurhayati, a third-year student of a nursing school in Darussalam, sometimes goes home in the evening.
In the past two years or so, Nurhayati, together with women's rights activist Rukaiyah, has also been organizing meetings with victims of the Aceh conflict in Aceh Besar's seven districts.
The purpose is to make conflict victims aware of their rights under the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding that put an end to the Aceh conflict in 2005.
Hidden by Nurhayati's hectic schedule as a student-cum-activist, however, is the troubled life she has been struggling to leave behind.
"Up until now I can never sleep soundly at night. Every time I hear a sound – even the slightest one – I wake up and lie on the floor immediately," said Nurhayati, trying to hold back her tears.
"Even the sound of a tire bursting prompts me to lie down on the ground. The trauma still seems to exist in my mind," she said in a trembling voice.
Nurhayati, whose very name means light of life, was not much older than 4 when former president Soeharto declared Aceh a military operation area known as DOM in 1989 to stamp out the secessionist GAM, which had been fighting for independence for the resource-rich province since 1976.
She was never physically abused during the armed conflict, but early exposure to murder, torture and other acts of physical violence against family members and residents of her village have left her with deep, difficult-to-heal, emotional wounds.
"I saw for myself how my father was tortured and his life threatened. I also witnessed someone threaten to shoot my brother dead," recalled Nurhayati, the youngest of six siblings born into a poor rural family in Pidie Jaya, North Aceh – one of GAM's strongholds – in 1984.
"Life was really difficult during DOM. I was accompanied by my brothers or male relatives wherever I went."
She recalled how in the 1990s people in her village did not know how to speak the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. "Adult males were asked to man the security posts every night. Since they could not speak Bahasa Indonesia they were plunged into wells throughout the night. My father was not spared from this torture."
She said that due to the military's heavy-handedness, people in her village lived in constant fear of being abducted or shot dead. "People in my village, including my parents and older siblings, were too scared to go to the rice fields, fearing they would be picked up by the military and shot dead."
"Almost every day, one or two male villagers would disappear and we just did not know who took them. What was certain was that two or three days after they disappeared, we would find dead bodies and that created tremendous fear among us villagers," Nurhayati said with a blank stare.
Nurhayati and her family thanked God in 1999 when former president B.J. Habibie, who replaced former president Soeharto in May 1988, lifted the DOM status and apologized to the Acehnese for their suffering during the decades-long military operation. They all believed that their long ordeal was over.
Their optimism, however, left them in 2000, when TNI members came to their village to look for GAM members.
"At that time, I was still in my third year of junior high. All the people in the village were ordered to march and told they would be killed.
"They were asked about the whereabouts of GAM members, but of course we did not know where they were as we were just ordinary civilians.
"I saw how my village chief was stripped naked and drenched with kerosene. At least two villagers were shot dead in front of my house, while others were tortured. TNI members also threatened to drive cars over the dead bodies," she said.
"After that incident TNI personnel conducted military operations in our village almost every day and that lasted until 2004. The people in the village, including my parents, were so scared," she said.
Now that peace has slowly come to Aceh, thanks to the Helsinki agreement, Nurhayati and her siblings are struggling to lead normal lives.
"We are trying to forget our bitter experiences by chatting and making fun of them," said Nurhayati, whose house was burnt down in 2001.
"We also try to convince ourselves the war has stopped and that peace has come to Aceh, so there is no need to lie on the ground when a tire bursts or when a small sound breaks the silence of a deep night. But it is difficult," she said.
Nurhayati said she and her family, like most victims of the Aceh conflict, had not received any trauma counseling and did not know if they would ever be able to recover. But still she counts herself among the lucky victims who have managed to go to school.
"I may be just one of a few conflict victims who went to school. I'm sure most of the victims did not even finish their elementary school studies. I hope the government, or whoever is in charge of conflict victims, provides free education for the children of conflict victims from elementary-junior, senior and even university levels and free health service."
She also reaches out to fellow victims, holding a biweekly meeting to discuss their rights as stipulated in the Helsinki agreement.
Under the memorandum of understanding, conflict victims will get material compensation from the government. It also mandates the central government set up a human rights tribunal to try those responsible for abuses in Aceh and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to facilitate the peace process in the province.
"We make conflict victims realize they have rights through discussions. If the people are not taught to understand their rights as victims, they will always keep their mouths shut," said Nurhayati, adding: "I feel proud to be able to work to help other victims even if I don't get any financial reward."
Conflict victims, according to Nurhayati, want those responsible for human rights violations in Aceh to be brought to justice and the victims to be compensated.
"For us victims, peace does not have any meaning if violations of human rights are not followed up. One of them is there should be a human rights trial and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be established as quickly as possible," she said.
Until those responsible for crimes in Aceh are brought to justice and the victims compensated, "we victims still feel suppressed."
"The black color (of the T-shirt and trousers I'm wearing) signifies oppression. This is to remind me that I'm still oppressed. Every day I wear black clothes, except the headscarf, because I think I'm still oppressed. My entire wardrobe is black," Nurhayati said.