Wrong prescription can kill the 'Unitary State'<\/p>\n
Endy M. Bayuni, Deputy chief editor, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Was Indonesia really about to lose Aceh to the Free Aceh
\nMovement (GAM)? Was Indonesia's territorial integrity really
\nunder any serious threat from GAM's actions?<\/p>\n
Hearing top officials in Jakarta explaining the government's
\ndecision to launch the military operation in Aceh on May 19, it
\nwas hard not to get this impression.<\/p>\n
Senior government and military officials have repeatedly
\nstressed that nothing less than the Unitary State of the Republic
\nof Indonesia (NKRI) was at stake.<\/p>\n
They said the government was compelled to launch the country's
\nlargest military operation - with over 45,000 troops involved, it
\nwas actually bigger than any military campaign ever launched in
\nEast Timor during Indonesia's 1975-1999 occupation - not only to
\ndefend Aceh, but also to prevent Indonesia from breaking up.<\/p>\n
This has been the line used time and again in the run up to
\nthe imposition of the martial law in Aceh this month after the
\ngovernment abandoned the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement that
\nit signed with GAM in Geneva last December.<\/p>\n
Critics of the war plans were quickly given strong verbal
\nreprimands about Jakarta's sovereignty rights to do what it deems
\nnecessary to protect its territorial integrity, particularly in
\nquelling the rebellion in Aceh.<\/p>\n
One by one, foreign governments were asked to pledge their
\nsupport for Indonesia's unitary state, or the NKRI, as if this
\nwas really under serious threat, from outside interference or
\nfrom internal forces, like the separatist movements.<\/p>\n
At almost every opportunity, President Megawati Soekarnoputri
\nor Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda would ask their
\nforeign counterparts for their pledge of support, as if there was
\never any doubt about it in the first place.<\/p>\n
Territorial integrity, which also goes by the Indonesian
\nacronym NKRI, has become an obsession for the government and
\nmilitary leaders. Defending it has become the overriding goal for
\nthem, subordinating everything else, including democracy, human
\nrights and, as in the case of Aceh, peace.<\/p>\n
The threat to NKRI, however, is more perceived than real.<\/p>\n
The "loss" of East Timor in 1999 has left such a stigma that
\nthe nation's leaders vowed never to cede another inch of the
\ncountry's territory again, and any insurgency must be dealt with
\nharshly before it grew too large to handle.<\/p>\n
Ever since Indonesia lost East Timor (although we never really
\nowned it in the first place), talks about defending territorial
\nintegrity or the NKRI have become fashionable among politicians
\nof all colors, particularly Megawati's own staunchly nationalist
\nIndonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). It has
\nbecome the weapon that politicians use to attack one another.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it has also become the weapon of choice by the
\ngovernment in Jakarta in quelling insurgencies, in Aceh and in
\nPapua, although the problems in Aceh and Papua are certainly very
\ndifferent from the one we encountered in East Timor.<\/p>\n
Of course like all lies or half-truths -- and the threat to
\nNKRI is a half-truth, if not an outright lie -- if you say them
\nrepeatedly, you start believing in them.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the Indonesian public too has come to believe that we
\nwere losing Aceh to GAM. The general public has accepted,
\nuncritically, that, unless we launched a full-scale military
\noperation in Aceh, Indonesia would soon cease to exist.<\/p>\n
A closer and more sober look at Aceh tells us a completely
\ndifferent story: GAM is not that serious a threat, and the people
\nin Aceh in general remain staunch supporters of the republic. In
\nother words, NKRI is not being seriously threatened.<\/p>\n
The separatist movement GAM may have gained more influence and
\nsupporters in recent years, and it has the TNI to thank for that,
\nbecause the atrocities our soldiers committed, especially during
\nthe military operation of 1989-99, have driven more and more
\npeople to the rebels.<\/p>\n
But to suggest that GAM has become a serious threat is to
\ngrossly overstate its strength. And to send nearly 50,000 troops
\nto deal with the 5,000 members of a rag-tag army is not only
\noverstating the problem, but worse than that, the government is
\ngrossly oversimplifying the problem.<\/p>\n
What is hard to understand is that this oversimplification
\nhappens even though the government and the military have a deep
\nunderstanding of GAM's strengths or rather, weaknesses.<\/p>\n
The government will tell you that it distinguishes between the
\nfew hundred real hardcore, independent ideologues in GAM, and the
\nthousands of GAM members or supporters who joined the movement
\nbecause they had directly felt the brunt of Jakarta's injustices,
\nespecially during the 1989-99 military campaigns. And there were
\nthe few opportunists and criminals in GAM.<\/p>\n
You would have thought that the government's solution to the
\nAceh problem would follow on this diagnosis: If the majority of
\nthe people joined GAM because of the injustices, then the
\nsolution would be to uphold justice in Aceh.<\/p>\n
The few opportunists in GAM can be bought off economically,
\nand the few criminals in GAM can be dealt with through
\nprofessional police work.<\/p>\n
That leaves us with a few hundred die-hard independence
\nfighters to deal with.<\/p>\n
Is a full military campaign, involving close to 50,000 troops,
\nstill justified given that the real threat to NKRI is only coming
\nfrom a few hundred die-hard proindependence people?<\/p>\n
Jakarta's strong obsession with defending NKRI appears to have
\ntotally blinded it from finding a more effective, and less
\nviolent solution, and one that stands a better chance of success
\nthan a military campaign.<\/p>\n
Given Jakarta's own poor track record in dealing with
\ninsurgencies, in Aceh, in East Timor and in Papua, we fear we
\nwill only be sending more people in Aceh into the GAM fold with
\nthis military campaign.<\/p>\n
Subjecting the entire Aceh province under a martial law, and
\nputting just about every Acehnese inside and outside Aceh as
\nterrorist suspects, are sure recipes to lose the hearts and minds
\nof the people there.<\/p>\n
Aceh is a classic example of a government making the right
\ndiagnosis but prescribing the wrong cure.<\/p>\n
The massive military campaign looks more like an unnecessary
\nmajor surgery, when what Aceh really needs is probably some
\nsimple medicine, like antibiotics.<\/p>\n
The danger with this approach is that in performing the wrong
\nsurgery, Jakarta may end up having to amputate Aceh altogether,
\nand going by the government's own logic, we ourselves -- rather
\nthan GAM or anybody else -- may end up killing NKRI altogether.<\/p>",
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