Aceh-Negotiations-Farid

Aceh-Negotiations-Farid

JP/20/FARID

A crucial element in the Aceh peace talks

Aboeprijadi Santoso
Contributor/Helsinki

The peace deal to be signed next week by the Indonesian
government and the Acehnese rebel Free Aceh Movement GAM found
its origins in painstaking lobbying initiated by then
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla and his
aides in mid-2003.

A key figure was the person who is now Director General of
Medical Care in the Ministry of Health, Farid Husain, a member of
the Indonesian delegation, whose tireless efforts bore fruit as
his path came across Finnish philanthropist Juha Christensen, who
was connected to former president Martti Ahtisaari.

A few weeks before the tsunami, GAM leaders in Sweden agreed
to meet. A month later, the peace talks started.

"Who ... Juha? Juha Christensen? He's my friend, he is the one
who arranged this (dialog)" replied Farid enthusiastically when I
met him last April at the Indonesian ambassador's house in
Helsinki.

Farid is an energetic man, and a joyful and easygoing person,
who loves joking; but he can also be very serious.

Recently, at the Helsinki Hilton Hotel, he told Radio
Netherlands the story of his mission, as assigned by his patron,
fellow Buginese, Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

It was mid-2003: The war was already underway in Aceh
following the collapse of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement
(CoHA). Yet, Jusuf Kalla believed there was a need to talk.

"We were exploring the possibilities of engaging in dialog,"
said Farid, "It doesn't matter how long (it would take). What is
important is there should be a willingness to talk. In any
conflict resolution, we have to believe that as long as there is
a willingness, there should be good intentions and purpose."

Farid loves the metaphor of family life. As with family
problems, he believes, a dialog is necessary; so are brokers,
sometimes.

Farid's would-be brokers were Acehnese in Aceh and elsewhere
in Indonesia and abroad. He patiently built relationships with
close relatives of GAM leaders Malik Mahmud, Zaini Abdullah and
others.

His first link was Mahyudin, a civil society activist. Soon,
his mission took him to Malaysia, Singapore and European
capitals.

Getting close to GAM

The job was far from easy. Being a government official, Farid
was fully aware of the difficulties of meeting with GAM members.
They needed consent from all groups to avoid suspicion. "No, no
deal. I didn't make any deal. I just came as a human being,
trying to be close, familial and maintaining an emotional bond
with them. I didn't talk about business. As a medical doctor, I
asked them about their health and things like that."

"My mission," Farid claimed, "was just humanitarian and I
believed God blesses me. Hence, my main asset was to be sincere.
I did so, too, in Poso and Ambon."

Thus, Farid's first network was GAM families and ringleaders.
"They did not know about me before. Now they knew, here is Farid
Husain, who assisted Pak Jusuf resolving the conflicts in Poso
and Ambon. And I have the advantage of coming from the outer
islands. I mean -- you know -- I'm not from Java."

After several meetings, "the fifth visit or so", Farid felt
they knew that he had serious intentions. I continued building
trust and confidence, yet with no results." His attempts to
contact GAM leaders were to no avail.

2003 was a bad year. The war in Aceh went on, as did the
crackdown. Half a year later, Farid's lobbying efforts were at an
impasse.

Meanwhile, a good friend in Sulawesi, Arifuddin Djuana, told
Farid that his guest from Finland wanted to meet him. Juha
Christensen, a shy but friendly linguist-turned-businessman from
Lahti, had lived in South Sulawesi and did research on the Rampi
language in the 1980s. Juha was interested in Aceh and had had
meetings with GAM leaders in Stockholm.

Farid was clearly enthusiastic. "I knew Juha already. At the
University of Hasanudin (Makassar), he was a researcher and I was
a lecturer. He came to my office in Jakarta to inquire about
selling speedboats. He congratulated me on peace in Poso and
Ambon.

"Then, he talked about Aceh and said 'I know people from GAM'.

I asked him, Can you give me some contacts? 'OK, 100
percent!'" he replied.

For Juha, too, it was not easy to gain the trust of GAM
leaders. As journalist Katri Merikallio revealed in the February
edition of Suomen Kuvalehti, Juha only passed the "test" as he
was able to meet former GAM negotiators in prison in Bandung.

Later, he arranged a secret meeting between Kalla and GAM
adviser Damien Kingsbury in Jakarta.

"But, Juha didn't know the rules of the game," said Farid,
referring to his presumption that GAM members needed consent from
their leadership before meeting Indonesian officials.

Subsequently, Juha and Farid, both separately and together,
did some heavy-duty traveling to and from Indonesia, Europe and
Scandinavia.

"About four or five times I tried to meet (GAM leaders); I
even wandered around Norsborg (a Stockholm suburb where they
resided), but in vain. I wondered, why? But I did meet and
exchange information with their representative in Amsterdam, M.
Fadlun, and his comrade from Denmark. That was early 2004."

GAM leadership remained hesitant because of martial law. When
the two lobbyists went to Stockholm, they were only willing to
talk to Juha. Farid had to wait for four hours in the hotel
lobby.

"They didn't come to me and I didn't go to them. They had not
apparently acquired the consent of (top leader) Hasan di Tiro,"
said Farid.

Approaching Martti Ahtisaari

They decided to take a new course. Juha's idea was to approach
Martti Ahtisaari, the chairman of an internationally respected
non-governmental organization, the Crisis Management Initiative.
On the same day, Juha's friend, the chief editor of the
newsweekly Suomen Kuvalehti contacted the former Finland
president.

"We bought ticket to Helsinki," said Farid, "We only had two-
and-a-half hours. I was still wearing my blue jeans; Pak
Ahtisaari didn't mind. We talked about Aceh; I explained the
special autonomy and the failure of CoHA. He listened carefully
and asked many questions. He was wonderful, truly a diplomat!"

Meanwhile, in late 2004, the new administration of President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice-President Jusuf Kalla came to
power. For GAM, the picture became clearer.

Things have looked brighter since. Kalla decided to proceed
and instructed Farid to stay close to GAM. "No, not a request,
it's an order! He ordered me to be a friend of GAM, a brother,"
said Farid. "Juha arranged everything and I established contact
between Ahtisaari and Pak Jusuf."

As Ahtisaari agreed to ask questions, he met secretly with GAM
leaders, who finally agreed to talk to the Indonesian government.
Sometime in Dec. 2004, a meeting was planned. Just as an
invitation was sent to Stockholm, the tsunami radically changed
Aceh. "Of course, that's also an important factor," said Farid.

"As time went on, (GAM leaders) trusted us. The forum proved
that we were serious. We listened to them. We also have a solid
team," Farid explained. Indeed, the five Indonesian team members,
now nicknamed "All Wapres' (VP's) Men", never changed and had a
clear division of labor.

The final test for Farid Husain was to act as a troubleshooter
to save what could be a historic deal. As the talks were almost
deadlocked on July 15, he disappeared from the ambassador's house
where the delegates rested or chatted with journalists.

It turned out he had gone to the city to meet a GAM
representative.

The next day, the parties had an accord.

(The writer is a journalist with Radio Netherlands.)