Kanis Dursin, Cot Keueng, Aceh Besar – It was around 3:00 p.m. and the sky above Cot Keueng mosque in Lamroh village, Kuta Baro district, some 13 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, was peculiarly blue.
Dozens of women wearing headscarves could be seen making their way to the pendopo (open hall) next to the mosque, and by 3:30 p.m. some 40 people were sitting cross-legged in a circle on its wooden floor, overlooking a paddy field.
The pendopo was crowded, yet it was eerily quite. The women barely spoke, hiding their hands in the folds of their veils.
Then three young veiled women entered the hall and began talking in an animated fashion about the Domestic Violence Law. And, for the next 20 minutes or so, they tried to convince the women to share their stories of abusive homes.
Instead of speaking up, however, the women appeared to withdraw. A mother in her 30s – the only one to say anything – asked whether victims of domestic abuse qualified for police protection.
Realizing that the women considered domestic violence a "private scandal" women's rights campaigner Rukaiyah suggested they instead talk about their ordeals during the armed conflict between government troops and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) from 1976 to 2005.
Suddenly the hall came to life, with each woman competing to voice her experiences and demands. "I urgently want to know the whereabouts of my husband's body so I can give him a proper burial," Fatimah, 35, pitched in.
The mother of two said she and other family members, including her son and daughter, had accepted the death of her husband, but were still troubled by the fact they had not given him a proper burial. "Just two days ago, my 8-year-old son said: 'Mama, if Papa is really dead, where is his grave? I want to visit him," Fatimah said.
A civil servant working for the local Maritime and Fishery Ministry office, Fatima's husband disappeared in 2002 when he was working the night shift. "My son seems to have accepted the death of his father, but does not understand why he cannot see his father's grave," she continued.
As Fatimah was struggling to fight back her tears, a woman in her 30s suddenly spoke up, recounting how she was detained and sexually harassed in 2001.
"It was at around 1 a.m.. They woke me up abruptly and took me to a police station without even allowing me to change my night clothes. I was detained and sexually harassed for several days," she said.
More women competed for the group's attention, divulging murders, acts of torture and other physical torments that they or their family members had endured or witnessed during the conflict, particularly after the government declared Aceh a military operation area known as DOM in 1989.
Rukaiyah, 35, said all the women attending the discussion were conflict victims who were either abused or lost their loved ones in the conflict that ended only when the government and GAM signed a memorandum of understanding in Helsinki, Finland in August 2005.
Since the signing of the Helsinki memorandum, Rukaiyah and student-cum-activist Nurhayati have been organizing biweekly meetings for victims in Aceh Besar's seven districts to discuss their rights as stipulated in the agreement. The districts take turns hosting the meeting, which often involves human rights and women's groups.
"Our mission is to make conflict victims understand their rights," said Rukaiyah, whose younger brother was killed in 2001.
The biweekly meetings move from one district to another, and depending on the relevance of the issues discussed for local people, a district can host two meetings consecutively.
"In six months, I have to visit seven communities of conflict victims," said Rukaiyah, adding that people in the regency tended to think murder was normal in a conflict area such as Aceh.
"People in the countryside don't know what human rights are. Had they understood human rights concepts, they would have joined us in fighting for their own rights. Our task today is to make them understand their rights.
"As victims, we can easily approach them (conflict victims) and they welcome us. Maybe if other people (non-victims) approached them, the victims would say 'why do we have to believe them'. As victims of conflict, we can easily enter into their communities," she said.
The Helsinki agreement calls for, among other things, the establishments of a human rights court to prosecute those responsible for abuses in the province and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) to formulate and determine reconciliation measures.
It also requires the government to allocate funds for the rebuilding of public and private property that was destroyed or damaged as a consequence of the conflict and to compensate conflict victims.
The memorandum's point 3.2.5, for example, states that the government of Indonesia will allocate suitable farmland as well as funds to the authorities of Aceh for the purpose of facilitating the reintegration into society of former combatants and the compensation of political prisoners and affected civilians.
Article point 3.2.5 c, meanwhile, says that all civilians who have suffered a demonstrable loss due to the conflict will receive an allocation of suitable farmland, employment or – in the case of the incapacity to work – adequate social security from the authorities of Aceh.
However, while peace has slowly taken root in Aceh, thanks to the absence of armed contact between the Indonesian Military and GAM members, the government is yet to enact laws on the establishment of the rights tribunal and the KKR.
Once the laws are in place, the Aceh government will still enact bylaws to make the laws operational, thus requiring a longer period for deliberation.
Former human rights minister Hasballah M. Saad proposed during a one-day seminar organized to assess the implementation of the Helsinki agreement that local customs and religious laws be used to speed up human rights trials in the province.
As for material compensation, the chairman of the Aceh Reintegration Agency (BRA) Muhammad Nur Djuli, whose organization is tasked with distributing compensation funds to conflict victims, suggested there be no more budgetary allocations for conflict victims.
"Two months after BRA was created, it got Rp 600 billion (US$55 million) to be disbursed in three months. The leader of BRA at that time got frightened and was unable to disburse the funds in such a short period. So, they asked the World Bank to help distribute the funds. The World Bank, which has been here for seven years, incorporated those funds into its programs such as the empowerment of district administrations, repairing irrigation systems, empowering women and improving health services.
"When I came along, I told the World Bank to continue their programs and to focus on the victims of conflict. But the World Bank told me it was incompatible with their policy of non-discriminative assistance," he said, adding that he was still searching for other financing sources to help conflict victims.
Rukaiyah and Nurhayati, however, are determined to fight for their rights and those of fellow conflict victims. "For us victims, peace does not have any meaning if violations of human rights (during the conflict) are not prosecuted," said Nurhayati.
According to her, the victims' demands were unison – the retrieval of dead family members for proper burial and justice for those responsible for human rights violations in Aceh.
"Aceh is now peaceful as there are no more armed encounters between the TNI and GAM members, but for us victims there is no peace until our demands are met," she said.
Rukaiyah added: "Our struggle is to fight for the rights of victims, we should not be afraid. Our rights have been violated (during the conflict), and now we have to fight to restore them.
"It's like a broom and its stick. If we fight alone, we cannot stand. We will only be strong if we are bound together. The victims now understand that they have been oppressed," Rukaiyah said.
"We victims will not be easily satisfied. We will continue to demand justice and if our rights are not honored, we will mobilize the victims into action," Nurhayati said without elaborating.