Aceh enigma: Old sins with long shadows

Aceh enigma: Old sins with long shadows

By Johannes Nugroho

SURABAYA (JP): The saying "Old sins have long shadows" seems
to be reverberating in the country's westernmost province Aceh,
materializing in the mounting pressure for a self-determination
referendum. In the face of damning evidence of human rights
violations in Aceh perpetrated by the Indonesian Military (TNI)
during Soeharto's regime, coupled with the incessant milking and
draining of the region's resources, Aceh has become a vexed
dilemma for the incipient administration.

Aceh and the recently seceded East Timor are arguably two
divergent issues. While historically as well as culturally
Indonesia has remote ties with the former Portuguese colony, it
is almost the opposite when it comes to Aceh.

Being one of the last conquests of the colonial Dutch Indies
government, Aceh has come to symbolize the most resilient
struggle against colonialism through its 1873-1904 war. The
Sultanate of Aceh was still fighting when its Javanese
counterparts had long bowed to the Dutch Crown. The Acehnese
names Teuku Umar, Commander Polim and Cut Nya Dien -- declared
national heroes by Soeharto, inspire visions of valor amongst
Indonesian history students.

What has been forgotten, however, is that those "national"
heroes were first Acehnese and were, strictly speaking, never
Indonesians. They waged their battles against the Dutch
encroachment on their sultanate as they have been for the last
decades against what they, presumably, see as the Javanese
usurpation of their rights.

There's no denying that Soeharto's regime was Java-centric,
while the fact that military's non-organic troops stationed in
Aceh were probably mostly Javanese did not help to dispel the
perception that Aceh was being overrun by Javanese. The fact that
arguably most Javanese people themselves were kept in the dark
about the military's atrocities in Aceh does not appear to
matter.

As if to add insult to injury, while Acehnese were being
massacred and raped by Javanese soldiers, more and more Javanese
transmigrants were being settled across Sumatra under Soeharto's
once lauded transmigration policy.

The policy was implemented supposedly to even out population
distribution in the country and to relieve the island of Java of
its overcrowding by relocating whole villages to underpopulated
regions throughout the country. This imposed, as well as
engineered, movement of people was most unnatural and has brought
about ethnic tensions between the Javanese transmigrants and the
non-Javanese indigenous people.

The resettlement policy has arguably been deemed by the locals
as yet another attempt at "Javanization" by Jakarta. Most of the
ethnic clashes in recent years, such as the Dayak-Madurese
incidents in Kalimantan, have arisen from the local's resentment
against the new comers. Indeed, had it not been for this policy,
the refugee problem besetting East Timor now would probably be
minimal. Consequently, referring to the East Timorese debacle, if
Aceh were to secede from Indonesia, it would certainly result in
another wave of refugees.

Conjointly, the loss of Aceh would inevitably become a
cataclysmic precedent and omen for the probable disintegration of
the country. Hence, it is imperative that the present government
strive at all costs to prevent Aceh from breaking away without
military might or further insult and condescension towards the
Acehnese.

If the Acehnese were vehemently resentful of the attempt by
the Dutch to curb their sovereignty then, now they are ostensibly
incensed by the unavenged murders and rapes. To top it all, their
natural resources have been exploited without their having a say
in it or receiving an overdue slice of the cake.

In due course, it is only fair that the government should
grant full autonomy to Aceh, with prerogatives like those of a
state within a federation: To manage its own internal affairs,
including a separate legal and educational system, police force
and so on. Aceh should be offered the status of a self-governing
integral territory of Indonesia, as Greenland is to Denmark.

However, the gift of autonomy would understandably be
insufficient to soothe Aceh's long-borne pain. Thus, it will be
necessary to accord the Acehnese the justice to which they have
been denied, in the form of punishment for those responsible for
atrocities committed against them.

Yet, this might prove to be complex, considering the powers
that be in this country still rely on the goodwill of the
military for stability. Should it refuse to have its former
officers charged with crimes against humanity, it should at least
consider a public apology to the Acehnese.

It is also of paramount importance that the government
designating financial retribution and compensation for the
victims or their relatives. The scheme could either involve one-
off payments or lifetime contributions. Furthermore, the rape
victims of Aceh should be entitled to psychological counseling to
better equip them to recover from their traumatic experiences.

Most important of all, Indonesians as a nation must not forget
the crimes against human dignity that have taken place in Aceh.
The nation must not commit the same mistake as the post-World War
II German and Japanese governments were guilty of: historical
censorship and a "shame-burying" sham.

Future generations of Indonesians must not be deluded into
ignorance of what occurred in Aceh, nor should they be deprived
of the painful chapter of atrocities and subjugation. They must
not be led into recoiling in shame and denial, while
proclaiming," Those things never happened. Those things were only
fabricated to discredit my country," as the neo-Nazis are now
saying about the Third Reich's genocide against the Jewish
people.

Already we have been culpable for this timorous act in the
East Timorese case. There are those of us who would rather
believe that East Timor was never annexed by Indonesia, that the
alleged genocide there was trumped-up by foreign governments and
so on. If Indonesia could pinpoint Australia's own attempt at the
ethnic cleansing of the Aborigines, then why can't we just say,
"Mea culpa. We've been guilty of what other nations have also
been guilty of and we are prepared to address it."

Transparently, the separatism rampant in Aceh derives from the
government's dogged reluctance to pursue and administer justice
until pressurized to do so. The Oriental culture of "saving face"
is arguably evident in the improbability of bringing the military
generals responsible for atrocities in Aceh to justice as it is
palpable in Gus Dur's "political" solution to Soeharto's crimes.

The Aceh question may well be the first stumbling block for
President Abdurrahman Wahid's administration. It is tempting to
suggest that the administration's tackling of the issue will
determine its own survival as any further disintegration of
Indonesia, after the loss of East Timor, might render the new
administration, in the eyes of the people, incapable of guiding
this nation to a better future.

The writer works at the International Language Program,
Surabaya.