Aceh atrocities boost people's demand for autonomy
Aceh atrocities boost people's demand for autonomy
By Pandaya
BANDA ACEH, Aceh (JP): The fragile-looking Baharuddin Lopa
stood in a crowd of 1,000 people surrounding an excavated
hillside mass grave under a scalding sun, alternately acting like
a fossil auctioneer and a fiery orator.
"So far we have taken out 24 pairs of thigh bones, six
blindfolds, eight pairs of arm bones tangled in plastic string,
five skulls, four pairs of pants and four pairs of underpants,"
the secretary general of the National Commission on Human Rights
announced what the body exhumers had found on Sentang hill in
North Aceh on Aug. 21.
Amid emotional screams of condemnation against the Soeharto
administration, the leader of the commission team probing the
atrocities paused, rebuttoned his shirt and adjusted his pants.
He continued, "We are certain that 12 bodies were buried in
this single grave. This strengthens our belief that massacres
took place in Aceh."
A dark-skinned man with a light mustache on the other side of
the pit stood up and shouted, "On behalf of the people of Aceh, I
demand that the commission should not just talk but do something
to help us seek justice." Others yelled in support of him.
The emotional man certainly did not have any mandate to voice
the Acehnese's demands but the essence of his demand for justice
closely reflects local people's views.
Although the operations are believed to have claimed thousands
of lives and caused untold suffering, it was only last month that
the victims spoke out, when an investigation team from the House
of Representatives led by Maj. Gen. Hari Sabarno visited them.
The subsequent stories of horror, such as massacres, rapes,
lootings and house burnings prompted the government on Aug. 7 to
stop the operations targeting the Free Aceh Movement's low-level
uprising that began in 1989.
Spearheaded by human rights campaigners, people are increasing
the pressure for legal solutions to the numerous crimes. Former
president Soeharto, who was also ABRI (the Armed Forces) supreme
commander, is their end target.
Activists who doubt the independence of the Indonesian legal
system to try the crimes against humanity have been pondering
about taking the cases to The Hague-based International Court of
Justice once the independent probe is completed.
"The government should offer compensation to relatives of
those killed during the operations and restore the respectability
of their names," Amran Zamzami, chairman of the Solidarity
Committee for the Respect of Human Rights in Aceh, says.
The combat troops' withdrawal, which began on Aug. 20, and
President B.J. Habibie's apology to the Aceh people for the
atrocities have been most welcomed but are considered
"inadequate" unless justice is upheld.
The people of Aceh, who take pride in their Islamic tradition,
use religious jargon to attract the Habibie administration's
attention to their plight.
"Aceh people are very forgiving but they will revolt when
their dignity is harmed," says Humam Hamid, a lecturer at Banda
Aceh's Syah Kuala University.
The extreme fear that the military created by use of excessive
force proved to be an effective way to silence people so that the
atrocities continued unchecked for nine years, he says.
Now that the military has loosened its grip on Aceh, common
people are mustering the courage to voice their demand: autonomy.
Unlike previous generations, some intellectuals have gone as far
as openly supporting the idea of making Indonesia a federal
state.
"We imagine that in the future, each state will be free to
manage their resources and run their own government," says Humam.
"They will offer a kind of fee to the central government for
services such as defense and foreign diplomacy."
It is understood that the secessionist problem in Aceh that
began in the 1970s stemmed from the small share it obtained of
the exploitation of the province's rich natural resources.
Critics say that Jakarta plunders the westernmost territory's
wealth and leaves it impoverished.
Sayed Mudhahar Ahmad, a respected informal figure who helped
found the Care Human Rights Forum for Aceh, reckons that since it
began operating in 1977, the Arun gas refinery in Lhokseumawe,
North Aceh, has generated Rp 30 trillion (US$2.6 billion) a year.
If income from the giant industries like fertilizer, paper and
timber are added, Aceh contributed an estimated Rp 31 trillion a
year from Lhokseumawe alone to the state coffers.
"As a comparison, Aceh's 1997/1998 provincial budget was only
Rp 102 billion or less than 0.35 percent of the value of its
natural wealth exploited and handed over to the central
government," Sayed says.
Aceh, which has a population of about 3.5 million, boasts
more than four million hectares of forest but all of it is
controlled by people Sayed calls "friends from Jakarta" who
divided it into 19 concessions.
"Armed only with a piece of paper, Bob Hasan's PT Alas Heleu
won a concession to control 160,000 hectares of pine forests in
the Central Aceh district of Gayo," he says.
Demands for greater autonomy have also been voiced by Ismail
Suny, a well-known Acehnese constitutional law expert.
Suny says that if a federal state is ruled out, greater
autonomy should be given to Aceh and other provinces.
"Aceh should be governed like a federal state," he says.
"Autonomy would strengthen the nation's integration and speed up
the achievement of justice and prosperity."
The National Commission on Human Rights has found repeated
evidence of human rights abuses during the Red Net Operations led
by the Army's Special Force (Kopassus).
Lopa, a one time chief of the Aceh Prosecutor's Office, says
he does not want to hear officials claim that the Aceh affair has
been dramatized with the intention of discrediting the
government.
"The people can no longer be silenced," says Sayed.