Canberra – Indonesian rights activists asked Australia on Monday to help bring reconciliation following a three-decade civil war in Aceh province, saying conflict will again threaten without more progress.
Australia, from which Jakarta seeks a US$2 billion (S$3.04 billion) loan to help battle the global financial crisis, should pressure Indonesia to move faster with a promised truth and reconciliation process, which the activists said had stalled.
"We have calm, but if the government does not do something serious, with real meaning, people will have the feeling of wanting revenge," said Mr Afridal Darmi, a human rights lawyer with the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, before meeting Australian lawmakers and foreign ministry officials in Canberra. "The fighting will erupt again," Mr Darmi told Reuters.
The 2004 earthquake and tsunami created a humanitarian and economic catastrophe in resource-rich Aceh, on Indonesia's western tip, leaving an estimated 170,000 people dead or missing. But the disaster provided momentum to end a long-running conflict between government soldiers and separatist rebels, known as GAM, in which around 15,000 people died before a post-tsunami peace accord struck in Helsinki in August 2005.
Human rights activists and victims are asking for a truth and reconciliation commission – a centrepiece of the Helsinki peace pact – which was to be formed by August to help air human rights violations committed during the separatist conflict.
But Indonesia's government says it is still focused on humanitarian help for the oil and gas-rich province, which has a long history of conflict and a legal system partly based on Islamic sharia law.
Australia is a major donor to Indonesia and boosted aid by A$1 billion (S$994 million) after the tsunami, including humanitarian help and support for government and education.
Mr Darmi and Mr Eko Waluyo, from rights group Indonesian Solidarity, told Australian politicians that Indonesian national elections next year would be a first for former Aceh fighters and without rights and democracy progress, could be a flashpoint.
"They tend to believe in arms, the way of weapons, to solve problems. We need to encourage them to use a more civilised approach," Mr Darmi said.