A model for an antiguerrilla war of attrition

By W. Waller

CIANJUR, West Java (JP): The remarks by Akbar Tandjung, speaker of the House of Representatives, last month that "if the separatists (in Aceh) mix with locals ... greater civilian casualties will be inevitable", raises some fundamental questions. Why does this have to be? What is wrong in Aceh that so many innocent civilians are being killed? Why did the insurrection in East Timor continue the whole period of the Indonesian occupation? And why is the same thing now happening in Aceh?

Under the Soeharto regime, East Timor and Aceh only made the news when separatist forces killed Army or policemen; the extent of their reprisals against Indonesian citizens was never mentioned. But we are now coming to realize that the Army and police have been waging a total war against the whole of both provinces. They have been at war with their own country.

This same warfare should not continue in Aceh. We must persuade the Army and the police that their tactics are all wrong; that unless they can prove that kampongs are separatist enclaves, they can no longer send in regiments of soldiers to destroy the kampongs and murder their inhabitants.

We often hear the excuse from spokesmen that the soldiers were "angry" at the deaths of fellow soldiers. Such talk is unacceptable. Whatever the type of warfare, there will always be killing. Properly trained soldiers will know how to use their anger and grief to make even greater efforts to find the real enemy.

The history of guerrilla warfare is a history of improvisation, and every war is different. Each is invariably fought to drive out an enemy who occupies the guerrillas' country, with the odds in numbers of soldiers very much against the guerrillas. Time and again, in history, the occupier has tried to use his overwhelming numbers to push the opposing forces out, only to find that as the opposition "disappears", guerrilla forces attack to the rear.

The only winners against guerrillas are those who have adopted guerrilla tactics -- who use part of their forces to do the fighting and the remainder to garrison towns and strategic resources such as oil refineries and industrial complexes.

One very successful campaign in which occupying forces won against guerrilla troops occurred in British Malaya at the end of World War II. A self-styled Communist army had declared war on the British and, at first, was very successful using guerrilla tactics.

Up to that time, most guerrilla wars had been fought in the mountainous areas of Europe and the Middle East, but Malaysian terrain is typified by jungle-covered mountains and lowlands. The British had been humiliated in 1941 when the Japanese took the whole of Malaya in 10 days, and they had learned their lessons well.

The Japanese won in 1941 by taking the easiest way they could from north to south of the country, using the jungle paths and minor secondary roads, and ignoring the main strong points. They then concentrated on taking remaining isolated strong points with comparatively little struggle. These tactics of using the jungle and maintaining strong points were adapted to fight the Communist army.

Briefly, the British tactics involved two factors. One was the protection of the population and the prevention of its use as a supplier of food and guns. Kampungs all over the country were enclosed with barbed wire fences and searchlights, and many were garrisoned with soldiers to protect the perimeter and the paddy fields. Everyone had an identity card and was subject to a dusk- to-dawn curfew within the fence. There was really only one rule -- stay inside or be shot without warning.

This was the maxim for the second factor, the prevention of the free movement of the guerrilla-enemy. Soldiers took up ambush positions on the jungle paths, as well as on main and secondary roads, with orders to shoot without warning. Once both factors were working, the random ambushes on small towns quickly died away.

The guerrillas found themselves at a disadvantage and, denied easy access to food, had to take increased risks. As a colonial people, the local population were not the British army's best allies, but the penalties for helping the guerrillas were so harsh that most of the food that did reach the guerrillas had been coerced by force.

With this model for fighting a guerrilla war in jungle terrain, the original questions asked at the beginning of this article becomes even more pertinent. Many of the best of Indonesia's Army officers have been trained at Army staff colleges in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia where they must have learned about jungle warfare.

Why was the method outlined above not adapted for use in Aceh and East Timor?

It must have been obvious, right from the very beginning, that the numbers of Indonesian men and women so convinced of their right to self-rule that they would leave the safety of their homes and become guerrillas, would be very small. A much larger number would be secret sympathizers, but the only way to discover them would be for the Army to employ informants and spies.

By following the Malayan model above, by enclosing remote kampongs and imposing curfews, the large-scale movements of guerrilla troops would then be clearly discreet from villagers' movements. Further, military patrols protecting the villagers would then have legitimate targets, and not entire and innocent villages.

Of course, such a war of attrition is costly in terms of the numbers of men employed, but Indonesia has a large, unemployed population. Properly trained in the need for a unified Indonesia and in human rights, a freshly recruited army of compulsory national servicemen could well break the habits of career-minded Army men. The introduction of this Malayan model of antiguerrilla warfare may well bring an end to the conflict in Aceh.

All good government is with the consent of the governed, but if the Aceh separatists refuse to come to the negotiating table, then the method of counteracting them must change. We must see an end to the almost daily reports of the terrible loss of life in ambushes and the even more terrible reprisals that the authorities take on the local people.

Once the antiguerrilla model described above is implemented, the Army and the police will quickly discover, as did the British in Malaya, that the Acehnese who are loyal to their nation will join the crusade for Indonesia. Most importantly, they will get the guerrillas out of the towns and kampongs, relegating them to remote jungles without access to food or arms.

The writer was a base camp National Serviceman in British occupied Malaya and now resides in Cianjur, West Java.