Alienating the Acehnese<\/p>\n
The government's announcement that Acehnese working for the
\nadministration must undergo special screenings is the latest in a
\nseries of measures, introduced since the imposition of martial
\nlaw, that will only further alienate the people of Aceh.<\/p>\n
A joint operation -- combining security restoration,
\nhumanitarian assistance, empowering the local administration and
\nlaw enforcement -- was launched in Aceh following the May 19
\npresidential declaration of martial law in the province. But if
\nthe objective is to improve the lives of the people of Aceh, the
\nexperience of the last four weeks has shown that the combined
\noperation has had just the opposite effect.<\/p>\n
Scores of civilians have been killed, some caught in the cross
\nfire between the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the separatist
\nFree Aceh Movement (GAM). There have also been unconfirmed
\nreports of the targeted killing of unarmed civilians by both
\nsides.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced because of the
\narmed conflict. Many children are unable to go to school because
\ntheir schools have been burned down; many people have lost their
\nlivelihoods and are now dependent on government handouts for
\ntheir day-to-day survival. Road blocks and ID checks hamper their
\nmovement.<\/p>\n
Life has turned for the worse, not the better, for most
\nAcehnese. The people of Aceh are living in constant fear and in
\ngreat uncertainty.<\/p>\n
And as if the government has not caused enough havoc, it has
\nissued a number of other measures that are making life even more
\ndifficult.<\/p>\n
There was the requirement that all Acehnese apply for new
\nidentity cards, which literally means lining up for hours if not
\ndays. Acehnese who live outside Aceh are under constant
\nsurveillance; in Jakarta, for example, residents have been told
\nto keep a close eye on their Acehnese neighbors for any
\nsuspicious activities. All Acehnese now, wherever they live, are
\nterror suspects as far as the government is concerned.<\/p>\n
And last week, the government announced that thousands of
\nAcehnese who work for the administration must undergo a \"Litsus\"
\n(short for penelitian khusus), a screening process used during
\nthe Soeharto era to weed out communists. This time, the goal is
\nto rid the bureaucracy of any GAM elements.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note that the government, or the TNI,
\nsimply took a page out of Soeharto's playbook in bringing back
\nthe widely discredited Litsus. The least they could have done was
\nto have given it another name.<\/p>\n
Historically, Litsus was synonymous with the suppression of
\npeople's basic rights. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, it was
\nused to screen out communists in the bureaucracy, military,
\npolitics, education, journalism and other professions considered
\nto be strategic. The offshoot of the Litsus was Bersih
\nLingkungan, another military phrase to denote a person as \"pure\"
\nfrom any possible communist influence.<\/p>\n
The Litsus was used not only to interrogate subjects for hours
\nto detect their ideological leanings, but also to trace their
\nfamily histories, checking for close or distant relatives who may
\nhave been tied with the communists. The extended family included
\nthe relatives of the subjects' spouses, married long after the
\n\"communists\" were dead and gone. During the time that the Litsus
\nwas used, many people lost their careers and livelihoods through
\nno fault of theirs, only because the military considered them to
\nbe \"impure\".<\/p>\n
Now it seems that this old concept, which was clearly a
\nviolation of people's basic rights, is about to be reintroduced
\nby the government in Aceh, specifically to weed out possible GAM
\nties -- however they are defined -- among government employees.<\/p>\n
One thing that has to be said about the martial law
\nadministrators in Aceh is that they are consistent. Their
\npolicies, including the Litsus, are consistently alienating the
\npeople of Aceh.<\/p>\n
This combined operation in Aceh was launched out of the
\ngovernment's concern for maintaining Indonesia's territorial
\nintegrity. It seems that the government, or the TNI, which is
\nadministering Aceh today, takes the word \"territorial\" literally.<\/p>\n
They are only concerned about keeping Aceh's territory and its
\nrich natural resources under the control of the republic. They
\nare not concerned about the people of Aceh, even though their
\ncontribution to the nation since independence 58 years ago has
\nbeen widely recognized.<\/p>\n
Going by their policies and actions in Aceh, the authorities
\nin Jakarta are not even trying to win the hearts and minds of the
\npopulace.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/alienating-the-acehnese-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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