Aceh talks to be still-born

Aceh talks to be still-born

Damien Kingsbury
Head, Philosophical, Political
and International Studies
Deakin University
Melbourne
Australia

Negotiations between the government and the Free Aceh Movement
(GAM), which are aimed at ending the northern province's
protracted conflict, look set to fail, with both the government
and GAM locked into separate final positions before the talks
even begin. The talks, to be held in Geneva under the
facilitation of the Henry Dunant Centre (including U.S. Gen.
(ret) Anthony Zinni) aimed at ending the province's 26-year-old
war for independence.

The government has made GAM's acceptance of a special autonomy
package for Aceh it announced early this year the starting point
for negotiations.

However, some observers in Jakarta say that acceptance of the
autonomy package should be the government's preferred outcome,
and not its starting point.

However, speaking in Kuala Lumpur ahead of the talks, GAM
negotiators say that the autonomy package is deeply flawed and,
being less than independence, would need to be voted on by the
people of the province. The government has so far refused to
accept the idea of a ballot on the autonomy package, fearing its
rejection would be a clear sign that most Acehnese do in fact
want independence.

Refusal by the government to accept a popular vote on autonomy
for Aceh has been paralleld by threats of full-scale military
action in the province, although most observers say that the
Indonesian Military (TNI) is already engaged in full-scale
military action. There are currently some 22,000 TNI soldiers in
Aceh, along with more than 12,000 paramilitary Mobile Brigade
national police and some 10,000 militia, mostly in central Aceh.

GAM has about 3,500 armed guerrillas in the hills and an
active suport base of around 10,000. More than 2,500 people have
been killed in Aceh since the beginning 2001 -- GAM claims 6,000
in 2001 alone -- following on from the deaths of more than 10,000
in the period from 1989 to 1998, the military operations period.

Also testing the government's possible acceptance of a popular
ballot on autonomy, GAM says that for any such vote to be free,
fair and transparent, it would require the involvement of an
external organization, such as the UN or a UN-sanctioned body.

The government and in particular the TNI has flatly refused to
countenance the presence of a foreign organization to oversee any
further ballots, "nationalist" sensitivity to such issues being
highlighted by the separation of East Timor after the UN-
supervised ballot of 1999.

The most recent phase of the conflict in the resource-rich
province began in 1999, after the outcome of the East Timor
ballot. GAM successes in the field, including cutting the Trans-
Sumatra Highway, despite an already high level of TNI activity,
led to an escalation of TNI and Brimob operations from mid-2001.

Since then dozens of villages and small towns have been
destroyed, there are now tens of thousands of internal refugees
and there have been well documented reports of numerous
massacres, one of which occurred next to the giant Exxon-
controlled Arun LNG plant at Lhokseumawe, southeast of Banda
Aceh.

Conflict between the Acehnese and Jakarta began in 1953, after
Jakarta scrapped Aceh's status as a quasi-independent province
following the war of independence against the Dutch. Peace was
concluded in 1963 on the basis that Aceh received 'special
autonomy' status. However, Jakarta continued to intervene in
Acehnese affairs, and dominated the economy, especially receipts
from the Aurn LNG plant, leading to an outbreak of hostilities
from 1976.

Members of the GAM negotiating team say they believe there was
a chance of reaching a compromise settlement with Jakarta up
until 1999. But since 1999, they say, there have been too many
human rights abuses in the province and the government has
refused to guarantee that any negotiated settlement would include
charges against TNI officers based on crimes against humanity.

GAM negotiators now say that the only possible settlement must
involve a ballot on Jakarta's new autonomy package, with the
alternative being a vote for independence.

Dr Damien Kingsbury is author of The Politics of Indonesia,
and a forthcoming book is Autonomy and Disintegration in
Indonesia.