A noble strategy for lasting peace in Aceh province

A noble strategy for lasting peace in Aceh province

Berly Martawardaya, Siena, Italy

Machiavelli once said that a prince never lacks legitimate
reasons to break his promise.

But the knowledge that a particular prince often breaks his
promise undermines most of its worth. This will put the prince in
a dilemma since he needs the peasants and nobles to sufficiently
believe his promises in order to benefit when breaking them.

The idea that one's gain depends on the actions and the
acceptance of other people has been examined in the last 50 years
in economics using the analytical tools of game theory. The
theory was acknowledged with a Noble Prize in 1994 for three of
its principal founders. One of them is John F. Nash Jr whose life
has been immortalized in a book and movie entitled A Beautiful
Mind.

The Noble Prize committee this year awarded another prize to
game theory, this time to those who advanced the concept once the
foundations were laid. This time, Thomas C. Schelling, who taught
at the University of Maryland and Harvard, shared the Nobel Prize
for economics with Robert Aumann from the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.

In his influential book, The Strategy of Conflict (1960),
Prof. Schelling outlines some concepts that could be used to
analyze the current conditions in Aceh and the way ahead.

Threats make one's actions conditional on what the other
player does, thus limiting one's choices of behavior. Threats
need to be communicated to the other party to be effective and
they need to be credible to be believed.

Someone who wants to go on a diet but is not sure of his
ability to reduce temptation may accept a bet with other people
so that he is not free to change his mind at later time. The bet
become a commitment device that is costly to break in the future.

The government would find it beneficial to break its promise
once GAM has surrendered its weapons to crush the movement and
GAM would benefit if it launched a fresh attack once the non-
local military forces had withdrawn from Aceh. Both sides have
been known to breach promises before, so what makes the Helsinki
MOU different?

The highest threat that GAM could deal the peace is a
proclamation of independence while the government has the ability
to declare and resume all-out war against separatists. But
neither move is intelligent since either would likely cause the
international community to freeze tsunami reconstruction aid.
The side that made the first move to break the peace would be
seen as extremely immoral and selfish and find it very difficult
to gain domestic and international support for its action.

Keeping this reconstruction aid flowing and one's reputation
as a humanitarian nation or group in the eyes of the world have
proved to be commitment devices too costly to break.

However, one side could still accuse the other of making the
first move and say it was only acting in legitimate retaliation
to a pre-announced threat. This is where the need for enforcement
of a peace arises. An enforcement body needs the ability to
distinguish a violations and the authority to punish or coerce
dealbreakers. Furthermore the party involved needs to perceive
the enforcer as impartial.

Therefore a third-party entity that is sufficiently accepted
by both sides and is well-equipped to identify who conducts the
first violations is indispensable. The Aceh Monitoring Mission
must strife for this much-needed credibility. The only punishment
available is a credible and public announcement that one party
has conducted violation with valid evidence.

That might not sound like much but the establishment of peace
is only the first stage of a two-stage process. The next is the
local elections of executive and legislative councils; both
institutions, which are projected to hold considerable power in
the Helsinki MOU. The government does not want GAM to win a
majority in these elections as much as GAM needs a strong showing
in order to advance its agenda. Violations by any sides at this
stage would very likely result in poor electoral results later
on.

Of course there will be shortsighted radicals on both sides
that do not abide by the rational calculations above. Peace
loving majority from both sides and ordinary people should act as
constraints, they must neither be intimidated nor emotionally
sway to the beat of the drums of war.

In peacetime local elections will be repeated every five
years. The time will come when the fate of Aceh will be
determined by the ballot and not the bullet. This mechanism
should ensure that the interests of the Acehnese are always in
the minds of the elected representatives. Whoever holds the
presidency or the majority in the national legislature cannot
afford to have Aceh declare independence under their watch since
it would likely lead to their downfall.

On the other hand, a local party founded by GAM has every
incentive to point to neglect by national government as a reason
to vote for them as the defenders of Acehnese interests and
identity. The commitment device of reconstruction aid may not
exist indefinitely and as long as GAM holds a majority in the
Aceh DPRD, the threat of independence is still there. Local
elections therefore will serve as a substitute commitment device.

Germany, Spain and Canada are examples of countries that have
regions with strong identities and histories of independence
movements and violence. Germany has Bavaria; Spain has Catalan
and Basque while Canada has Quebec. All three have largely
pacified the renegade regions with economic incentives, increased
national prestige and allowed them to express their identity in
an acceptable political way.

Munich, the capital of Bavaria, is more affluent than most
parts of Germany and stands tall as the country's manufacturing
center with the BMW and Mercedes Benz factories as its crown
jewels.

Like Germany, all these Western countries pour money into
independent-minded regions to appease their constituents and all
of them have hosted events of international prestige such as the
Olympic or Winter Games.

Thus, the regions feel they are an important asset. Bavaria,
Catalan and Quebec are also known for strong local sports teams
that serve as a vent for deep-seated emotions of repressed
identity.

All three countries also allow local parties that champion
regional identity and their local elections are fought as
ferociously as their sports games.

The writer holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the Free
University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is currently a PhD
student in the School of Politics and Economics at the University
of Siena, Italy.