Indonesian Cabinet risks commiting war crimes<\/p>\n
Endy M. Bayuni, Deputy chief editor, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
At first glance, the government appears to have laid out a
\ncarefully and well thought-out plan for its combined operations
\nin Aceh, which it will likely launch this week.<\/p>\n
At least, that is the impression that government officials are
\ngiving as they make preparations for the campaign that combines
\nhumanitarian assistance, law enforcement, restoration of
\ngovernment services, and security operations.<\/p>\n
The government hopes that through these simultaneous
\noperations Aceh will soon return to the path of peace and order,
\nand prosperity, minus the separatist rebels with whom it has been
\nfighting these past 26 years.<\/p>\n
This four-in-one operation is the government's answer to
\nresolving the Aceh problem, now that it has virtually abandoned
\nall negotiations with the Aceh Free Movement (GAM).<\/p>\n
It is probably safe to assume that the Cessation of
\nHostilities Agreement (COHA), brokered by the Geneva-based Henry
\nDunant Centre (HDC) and signed by the government and GAM in
\nGeneva in December, is as good as dead.<\/p>\n
The security campaign will be the cornerstone of this combined
\noperation, which will be launched once the government's ultimatum
\nfor GAM to return to the negotiating table ends today (Monday).<\/p>\n
The government's position regarding the campaign was made
\nclear by chief political and security minister Susilo Bambang
\nYudhoyono's favorite phrase last week: \"The show must go on.\"<\/p>\n
With up to 50,000 troops and police officers planned for what
\nthe government terms a \"security operation\", the other three
\ncampaigns would be peripheral, although they are not necessarily
\nless important.<\/p>\n
But let's not kid ourselves. This is a war.<\/p>\n
This will be Indonesia's biggest military deployment since
\nindependence 58 years ago. The Indonesian Military (TNI) has
\nspared nothing for the campaign, deploying all the best units in
\nits possession.<\/p>\n
The Army is sending its Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad)
\nand the Special Forces (Kopassus); The Navy is deploying its
\nMarines on the ground, as well as more than 10 of its warships to
\npatrol the waters around Aceh; the Air Force is sending its crack
\nSpecial Forces (Paskhas), and stationed a handful of its
\nairworthy jet fighters in Medan in neighboring North Sumatra. The
\npolice are deploying its own elite forces, the Mobile Brigade.<\/p>\n
The government is going all out in this military campaign.<\/p>\n
The confidence Jakarta displays in launching the combined
\noperations reminds us of George W. Bush and his war in Iraq to
\ntopple Saddam Hussein in March.<\/p>\n
Jakarta's confidence is buoyed by little public opposition.
\nThe peaceniks who took to the streets in their thousands to
\noppose Bush's war in Iraq have been muted. Their deafening
\nsilence is taken, certainly by the government, as approval of the
\nwar plan.<\/p>\n
The majority of the mainstream media in Jakarta seemed to have
\nbought the government's argument that war was inevitable, and
\nthey are now busy preparing their journalists to become embedded
\nwith the TNI to cover the war from the front line.<\/p>\n
Opposition came from a handful of Aceh public figures who have
\nbeen in Jakarta this past week to lobby the government to change
\nits mind. But Jakarta's mindset is already so geared up for war
\nthat President Megawati Soekarnoputri even refused to meet the
\nAceh delegates who were crying out for peace and for Jakarta to
\nspare Aceh from another humanitarian calamity.<\/p>\n
Nothing, it seems, will stop the government from going ahead
\nwith its war plan, and judging by officials' smug attitudes,
\nnothing can go wrong with the plan.<\/p>\n
The TNI certainly has a huge numerical superiority at almost
\n10 to 1, if we believe the claim that it is deploying 50,000
\nfully trained and armed troops to fight the 5,000 largely
\nuntrained armed rebels. And its weaponry, not great even by Asian
\nstandards, is still far superior to GAM's.<\/p>\n
The government can also claim to have the support of the
\npeople (though, no one had bothered to ask the Acehnese about
\nthis war), and the political legitimacy.<\/p>\n
Could anything really go wrong with this war game plan?<\/p>\n
Certainly.<\/p>\n
This war is being launched by a government operating on a
\nshoestring budget. Any war is financially costly, and there is a
\nbig question mark over how the government intends to finance this
\ncampaign if it drags on.<\/p>\n
Those drawing an analogy with the U.S. military campaign in
\nIraq forget that the TNI is facing a guerrilla war, not a
\nconventional war. The TNI's record in counter-insurgency
\noperations has been appalling, and raises the question as to why
\nthis one should be successful.<\/p>\n
With its poor track record, history is definitely not on the
\nTNI's side.<\/p>\n
Earlier military campaigns in East Timor, Papua and Aceh,
\nparticularly the one conducted between 1988 and 1998, ended up
\ndriving more people to the opposing camp. The military ended up
\nbeing part of the problem, not the solution. In all these
\nprevious campaigns the TNI's reputation was marred by the
\natrocities its members committed against civilians.<\/p>\n
For the Acehnese, the scars and trauma of the 10-year military
\noperations that ended in 1998 are still haunting them. Beginning
\nthis week they will have to endure another military campaign, the
\nscale and extent of which no one can predict. This is hardly a
\nrecipe to win their hearts and minds.<\/p>\n
Not even the military is prepared to state what would be
\nconsidered as an acceptable figure for collateral damage in this
\ncampaign, or how long this campaign will go on. Minister of
\nSocial Services Bachtiar Chamsyah says the government is
\npreparing to deal with up to 200,000 additional refugees.<\/p>\n
TNI's assurances that this war would be monitored by the media
\nto ensure that its soldiers did not commit atrocities against the
\npeople as in the past was not all that convincing.<\/p>\n
The media taking part are tightly selected, and they would
\nonly be joining the logistic support units, and not put on the
\nfront line to see the combat firsthand. From the experience of
\nthe embedded American journalists in Iraq, we know that reporters
\nlose their impartiality and become patriotic when they get too
\nclose to (or practically in bed with) the troops.<\/p>\n
But even if by chance reporters or other monitors discovered
\natrocities and reported them, what then? Can we count on being
\nable to hold the TNI accountable?<\/p>\n
Accountability is one area for which the TNI has a notorious
\nreputation. When it already has a huge pile of unresolved cases
\nof TNI's lack of accountability (again largely in East Timor,
\nPapua and Aceh), then we can expect that any new report of
\natrocities committed in Aceh would also be ignored.<\/p>\n
But it matters not.<\/p>\n
If this war is launched under the cover of a presidential
\ndecree, as it is expected, then it is President Megawati and her
\nlieutenants in her Cabinet who will be made accountable for
\nanything that might go wrong with this military campaign. They
\nare the ones who will have to face the charges of war crimes if
\nthings go horribly wrong in Aceh.<\/p>",
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